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A VISIT TO FLANDERS, 



VISIT TO FLANDERS. 

IN JULY, 1815: 

BEING CHIEFLY AN ACCOUNT 

OF THE 

FIELD OF WATERLOO, 

WITH A SHORT SKETCH OF 

ANTWERP AND BRUSSELS, 

AT TEAT TIME OCCUPIED BY THE WOUI'DED OS 
BOTH ARMIES. 

BY 

JAMES SIMPSON, Esa, 

ADVOCATE. 

First American, from the Second British Edition. 



My iountry ! 

■";... I can feel thy fortunes, and partafoe 

Thy joys and sorrows with as true a heart 

As any ,. Cowper. 



m 

NEW- 



its* J*b 



PUBLISHED BY S. CAMPBELL, W t f EAR L'STREgT > 
J. Seymour, print. 

1816. 



\ 






PREFACE* 



The following pages are a part of a 
series of notes, written during a 
tour through Holland, Flanders, and 
France, in July, August, and Septem- 
ber last. 

The publication of them in the 
present form was suggested by a per- 
suasion of the interest of every cir* 
cumstance connected with Waterloo ; 
and by a feeling that my own esti-^ 
mate of that wonderful field, howe- 
ver high before, has been incalculably 
exalted by my visit to its scene, and 
my intercourse with many of its gal- 
lant soldiers. Bold would th€ writer 
be who should presume to think, that 
any thing originating with himself f 



8 PREFACE, 

could deepen the public impression of 
Waterloo. But any one who felt as 
he ought, may " tell the tale, as it 
was told to him," encouraged by the 
assurance, that an intelligible account 
of what he could not fail to see and 
hear, must possess intrinsic value 
enough to plead his apology for lay- 
ing it before the public. 

My information was drawn from the 
most authentic sources, either on the 
memorable spot, or subsequently in 
Paris, where it was my good fortune 
to be much in the society of military 
men. 

As I have referred occasionally to 
the accounts of the battle by the Duke 
of Wellington, Marshal Blucher, 
Genera. s Alava, Bonaparte, and Mar- 
shal Nev it has been judged right to 
append the&e important documents. 

Toe engraved Plan is a copy of 



PREFACE. 9 

one published in Brussels, from ac- 
curate survey ; and by far the most 
satisfactory which I have seen. 

My description is necessarily lim- 
ited and partial. It is a tourist's 
passing sketch, not a circumstantial 
military detail. I have not a doubt, 
that much as I have heard, I have still 
a great deal more to hear. If, there- 
fore, in the very inadequate account 
which I have ventured to give of some 
striking incidents, I have omitted any 
of the actors immediately concerned, 
I have no other plea than the imper- :< 
fection, so far, of my knowledge. At 
the same time, the mere possibility of 
such omission would be no good rea-> 
son for suppressing any part of the 
well vouched positive information 
which 1 did .obtain. 

It was to be expected that I should 
hear more qf the minuter history of 



10 PREFACE, 

the regiments of my own country* 
than of those in which I did not en- 
joy the advantage of a single ac- 
quaintance ; and I am quite aware, 
that my narrative has thereby con- 
tracted a strong national character. 
But at the same time, I have attempt- 
ed to convey, what 1 intensely feel, 
an unqualified impression of the valor 
and constancy of the Men of Water- 
loo, without distinction of British or 
Continental; and have recited with un- 
feigned delight, several anecdotes to 
the exclusive honour of the warriors of 
England and Ireland ; besides having 
reason to know that I have said no- 
thing of the soldiers of Scotland, but 
what is borne out by the universal tes- 
timony of friends and foes. I have* 
therefore, submitted this observation 
more in the spirit of explanation than 

apology. 

Edinburgh, 30th Oct. 1815. 



CONTENTS. 



fige. 
Antwerp, ..*♦.. IS 

X'«tssEoS, . . . • . , 39 

Visit to the field, 64 

Conclusion .......,.*. 1^4 

APPENDIX. 

British Account of the Battle of Waterloo— London 
Gazette Extraordinary, ... - 158 

Prussian Account Official Report of Marshal 

Blucher, 171 

Spanish Account— —Dispatch from General Miguel 
Alava, 18|| 

French Official Account, . . . . , .- .194 

Marshal Ney's Observations on the Battle^ , , %Q5 



FISIT TO FLANDERS, 8fc 



CHAPTER I. 

ANTWERP. 
Caserne de Facon, one of the hospitals 
of wounded British — La Corderie, the 
hospital of wounded French — Citadel 
—Convicts in chains — Wounded Offi- 
cers — Highlanders in Antwerp — 
Docks of Napoleon— View from the 
tower of the Cathedral — Streets and 
houses of Antwerp— Cathedral, and 
Hanks left for Ruben's- pictures, ex- 
pected to be restored. 

After a four days passage from Leith, 
and a short but delightful tour through 
the most interesting part of Holland,-— 
from Rotterdam by the Hague, Leyden, 
and Haarlem, to Amsterdam: and south 



U ANTWERP. 

again by Utrecht and Breda,— I entered 
Flanders at Le Coin D'Argent on the 
27th July ; and in a few hours arrived at 
Antwerp. 

Much of the novel feeling of first tread- 
ing the long interdicted Continent had 
worii off; and I had even become so much 
familiarized, as to travel many a very 
straight mile on Napoleon's great chaus- 
see of granite, with hardly a glance be- 
stowed upon the little varying scenery on 
either side of it. But in our progress 
there did occur places, especially towns., 
so fertile in interesting associations, so 
identified with our impressions of French 
presence and power, so recently the lair 
of the dreadful monster just hunted down, 
that it was impossible ta approach them 
without the most engrossing sensations ; 
—avidity to survey them closely ; a cer- 
tain increase of pulse on entering their 
lately implacable gates ; and a large 
share of national pride, because a visit, so 
long dangerous, was at length made safe ; 
and the visitors received* with a soft of 



ANTWERP. lb 

consideration even, on account ot their 
country. 

No place of strength and importance 
more occasioned these feelings than Ant- 
werp ; a place whose very name we have 
long connected with an undefined idea of 
danger to England ; and which we knew 
to.be the favourite, jealously guarded, and 
almost mysterious officina, where some- 
thing very tremendous was forging against 
us by an enemy, whose means invariably 
exceeded our utmost calculations. These 
considerations much increased the in- 
tensity of my gaze at the broad ditches, 
lines and bastions of that almost impreg- 
nable place ; and gave a double effect in 
imagination to the cannon which pointed 
on the long bridges ; till, on arriving at 
the gate, 1 saw the first proof of the satis- 
factory change of times, a guard of the 
25th regiment of our own trust-worthy 
country. 

After the verification of my passport at 
the office of the policy, I was much sur- 
prised to hear my name called out in very 



16 ANTWERP. 

friendly English, as I was crossing the 
great square in front of the Hotel de Ville« 
To my great satisfaction, I saw my friends, 
Dr. Somerville, inspector general of mili- 
tary hospitals in Scotland, and Dr. Thom- 
son, professor of military surgery in Edin- 
burgh ; who had, with an enterprise and 
benevolence most creditable to them- 
selves, set out for this country of wounds 
immediately on hearing of the battle of 
Waterloo. The great body of wounded 
at Brussels, had for a considerable time 
occupied their attention ; and they had 
now come to Antwerp in prosecution of 
their investigations. As they had visited 
a near relative of my own, severely 
wounded at Quatre Bras*, my first inquiry 
was naturally about his progress ; when, 
equally to my surprise and satisfaction, 
they informed me that he had a -short 
time before obtained leave to return to 
England, in a fair way of recovery ; and 

* Captain in the first foot guards, now created 
grenadier guards, in reward for their having defeated 
the- grenadiers of the French imperial guard. 



ANTWERP. If 

that they had heard of his arrival in Lon- 
don. 

The permanent objects of the travel- 
ler's attention in Flanders and France, 
suffered a postponement, in this eventful 
year, to the marvels of the juncture which 
had occurred in these countries* I was 
now in the region of Waterloo-, with an 
interest in its wondrous theme growing as 
I advanced. I had now reached the first 
city where the details of its only yesterday 
horrors, sufferings, and glories, banished 
every other topic of conversation. Some 
thousands of the wounded actually in Ant- 
werp, many public buildings converted 
into hospitals, and many more private 
houses devoted to the same use, with all 
th,at the brave sufferers loved to relate 
ea^h of his own share of the great day, — 
it \^as in effect to be in the field itself, to 
hd at this time in Antwerp ; and the inte- 
rest of seeing the wounded was enhanced 
by being in the company of two of their 
most skilful, zealous, and justly popular 
friends. 

b 2 



IS ANTWERP, 

A stronger impulse than that which 
prompts a visit merely of sympathy and 
admiration to the brave in the comparative 
comfort of a well regulated hospital — a 
wish to save life or mitigate anguish, 
would urge one into the midst of the new- 
ly created horrors of a field of battle* 
Fortunately for our countrymen, this im- 
pulse was promptly obeyed by the hu- 
mane inhabitants of Brussels ; and many 
a soldier owed his life to the speedy re- 
sort of individuals to the dreadful scene. 

It would be only less insensible than 
passing them by in the field, to decline an 
opportunity of visiting in hospital a large 
body of the men who had purchased with 
their limbs, the mighty victory with which 
the world resounded. — Nor can any de- 
gree of excitement be imagined more in- 
tense, than that occasioned by the abso- 
lute presence of so striking a feature of the 
battle as its wounded. The idea that 
their sufferings are every day diminish- 
ing, occurs for the visitor's relief, and that 
they are reaping the advantages of a sys- 



ANTWERP. 19 

4 

tem of skill and care, not exceeded in any 
branch of the multifarious economy of 
the great country which their firmness 
and valour has made to triumph. Many 
, a zealous, and patient medical labourer in 
the military hospitals, with perhaps the 
gratitude of his patients or his own re- 
flections his only reward, has been heard 
to regret that the country knows so little 
of, or cares so little for those noble mo- 
numents of the combination, the genius, 
and the skill of the professors of the heal- 
ing art. There is no road more certain 
to the formation of a just and high esti- 
mate of our country, than an introduction 
to t'he interior economy of its grander in- 
stitutions, civil and military. There is a 
healthy vigour in every branch, which re- 
fers all to one sustaining root of freedom, 
of light, and of energy ; nor is there any 
better foundation for true patriotism, than 
an extended knowledge of the wonderful 
detail. 

Something, if possible, beyond the ave- 
rage care for the sick and hurt, ap- 



W ANTWERP. 

peared to me to animate all ranks of me- 
dical men, for the wounded of Waterloo ; 
and their zeal made no distinction be- 
tween their countrymen and their ene- 
mies. 

I accompanied my friends to an hospi- 
tal of 800 British wounded, which they 
visited in the evening. Nothing could 
be better fitted for its purpose. One of 
the finest barracks perhaps in Europe, 
called the Caserne de Facon, built by 
Bonaparte for the destined plunderers of 
London, was immediately available for 
the comfortable reception of their wound- 
ed conquerors. The latter were further 
indebted to him for the industry with 
which he had fitted up all the convents of 
Antwerp as barracks ; nothing could be 
more convenient and satisfactory than 
their easy conversion into hospitals, with 
the best possible accommodation. There 
was no end, through my whole tour, to the 
occurrence of striking examples of that 
reversal of French destinies^ which the 
times had produced. 



ANTWERP. 21. 

The seene was now entirely, divested 
of its more horrifyingTeatures. A gene* 
ral air of comfort and comparative ease 
was apparent in the accommodations and 
clothing of the men ; and the satisfactory 
assurance was superadded, that in general 
they were doing well. There was there- 
fore nothing to prevent the casual visitor 
from experiencing the peculiar and rare 
interest of the scene, and connecting it 
with the v field of battle; nor could any- 
thing be imagined more striking than the 
sight of the beds, and bandages, and 
crutches of the wounded of Waterl o ; ex- 
cept actually that of the graves of the 
slain, on the memorable field itself. We 
knew that the intended poet of Waterloo 
was shortly to visit Antwerp and Brus- 
sels ; and anticipated much from his see- 
ing the wounded. In the variety of as- 
pects in which the scene would appear to 
different descriptions of visitors, its poet- 
ical features are not the least striking ; 
and combining the affecting spectacle 
vriih the field where the ruin was wrought. 



ANTWERP. 



such a poet could not have failed in a de« 
scription of the utmost beauty and pathos, 
It needed not poetical inspiration, how- 
ever, to feel intensely the occasion ;— 
and hard would his heart be, who could 
have gone through the ranges of the beds, 
and seen so many brave men unable to 
rise, so many limping or creeping about ; 
so many arms in slings, and heads bound 
up; and withal, ,such perfect patience 
and order; and glanced in thought at the 
stupendous boon to mankind, of which 
this scene of suffering was the price, with- 
out a tribute of emotion almost over- 
powering. 

With many of the men, whom I was 
assured it did not disturb, there was no 
resisting the temptation of conversing. 
A stranger was a kind of novelty to them ; 
and they were most naturally solicitous 
to know, that their deeds and their suf- 
ferings were duly appreciated. — " What 
do they say of us at home ?" was several 
times asked. And a most liberal assur- 
ance, that their unequalled merit had 



: 



ANTWERf, 23 

ample justice done to it by their country- 
men, seemed very gratifying to them. 
Out of doors, in a large court-yard, were 
great numbers of the more slightly hurt 
and the convalescent ; and we w r ere ena- 
bled to distinguish our own countrymen 
by their bonnetsr They came about us in 
numbers, the moment they heard Scot- 
land mentioned. It was a great refresh- 
ment, they said, to hear its name. " They 
hoped they had not disgraced it." To a 
man, however, they rejected any exclu- 
sive praise on their own account : " They 
did no more than their duty ; and so did 
every regiment which was there." 

The contentment and cheerfulness of 
these brave men, were very affecting. 
Every one gave an answer, in which there 
was resignation or hope, to inquiries how 
they were ; and there was a decency of 
demeanour and good order, which strong- 
ly marked the reasonableness and good 
sense of the respectable soldiery of our 
country. 

Beyond the citadel, is La Corderie, a 



M ANTWERP. 

building constructed by Bonaparte, as a 
rope-work, and 1300 feet long, to give 
space for the cable of a first rate ship of 
war. It is fitted up as the hospital of 
about 1500 of his wounded soldiers, pri- 
soners of war. 

A very different feeling from the min- 
gled pity and admiration, with which our 
own wounded countrymen were visited, 
— a little hesitation in mingling with these 
ferocious and exasperated men, was not 
unnatural ; but as a moment of the reality 
showed, very unnecessary. Insult was 
certainly the utmost which a stranger ap- 
prehended; but even this had no place, 
where all were engrossed with their own 
sufferings : humbled in a consciousness of 
t^ieir irretrievable defeat : and withal, un- 
der excellent surveillance and discipline. 
The whole immense length q{ the place 
was open; and the beds were arranged 
in four rows, from end to end. We walk- 
ed generally unnoticed by their occu- 
piers, up and down the lanes between; 
and equally disregarded* frequently stept 



ANTWERP. 25 

over a bed, or passed between two, when 
going from one passage to another. It 
was impossible to imagine two extremes 
of human lot more strikingly contrasted, 
yet more forcibly associated, than the 
spectacle which these unfortunate enthu- 
siasts presented now, and their confidence 
and fury but yesterday ; their submissive 
tranquillity in their flannel gowns and 
caps in the hospital, and their noise and 
cuirasses in the field. 

Many cases, however, were such as to 
chase all theassociations now described, 
and substitute unmingled pity in their 
stead. Death was at work here, much 
more manifestly than we had observed 
among the English wounded ; numberless 
faces, as we passed along, seemed hardly 
to retain signs of life; a spectacle ten- 
fold aggravated, when the concomitant 
idea presented itself, that nature had 
maintained a struggle with anguish for s 
whole month, to yield in the end, in cir 
cumstances, compared to which, instant 
death in the field was happiness. Thf 
c 



26 ANTWERP. 

cases in the French hospital, were almost 
all worse than those in the British ; this 
was especially true of the sabre wounds, 

I a circumstance which was attributed to 

the superior physical force of the British 
arm, nerved by revenge for the cruelties 
of the enemy, which it may be believed 
were not hid from the men, and by the 
enthusiasm of pursuit when the day was 
decided ; but in truth, much more natu- 
rally resulting from the circumstance, 
that most of the slightly wounded found 
means to escape from the field. We 
chanced to witness, as we passed, the ac- 
tual termination of one poor soldier's suf- 
ferings; a moment delivering him, but 
impressing the unpractised beholder, in a 
manper never to be forgotten. We had 
observed a very miserable looking priest, 
with his book, visiting several parts of 
the ward ; and now saw him fixed with 
folded hands, muttering a prayer at the 
foot of one of the beds, where the clothes 
were thrown over the face of the occu- 
pier. The latter had that moment breath- 
ed his last, after dreadful sufferings. 



ANTWERP. n 

We stood uncovered to hear, and pay 
becoming respect to their ceremony of 
blessing the dead. The hourly report of 
casualties soon followed us to the bureau 
of the hospital. In it was the death, at 
half-past nine o'clock, of a Jean Bap- 
tiste Bronneur, of the young guard, aged 
twenty-two :"— a youth who had not 
doubted either of the easy triumph of his 
Emperor, or of his own arrival at the 
rank of a marshal of France ; who but 
yesterday contributed his utmost strength 
to the shouts of the Champ de Mai, 
and swelled the tide of self-devotion at 
the field of Waterloo, — now stretched 
lifeless on his pallet, for the bad cause of 
that unworthy chief, who certainly, had 
fee seen the last moments, and listened to 
his own name on the dying lips of his de- 
votee, would have been too much occupi- 
ed with the means of saving the un wound- 
ed remnant of his own dishonoured days, 
to have spared other reflection than some- 
thing about spttise or dommage. No 
associating principle of the most irresis- 



S0 ANTWERP. 

tible contrast, could more powerfully 
have recalled to our minds the flight and 
surrender of Napoleon Bonaparte, than 
the shrift and blessing of " Jean Bap* 
tiste Bronneurj de la jenne garde, age 
de vingt-deux ans." 

Yet did the phrenetic zeal for the Em- 
peror, in the poor creatures, seem to in- 
crease with their sufferings, and in the 
face of the full knowledge of his sacri- 
fice and desertion of them. One man 
was pointed out, who had tossed his am- 
putated arm in the air, with a feebie 
shout of " vive PEmpereur." Another, 
at the moment of the preparations to take 
off his leg, declared, that there was some- 
thing he knew of which would cure him 
on the spot, and save his limb and the 
operator's trouble. When asked to ex- 
plain this strange remark, he said, " a. 
sight of the Emperor! 55 The indispen- 
sable amputation did not save him ; he 
died in the surgeon's hands 5 and his last 
words, steadfastly looking on his own 
blood, were, jjhat he would cheerfully 



ANTWERP. 29 

shed the last drop in his veins, for the 
great Napoleon ! A singularly wild and 
almost poetic fancy, was the form in 
which a third bore his testimony. He 
was undergoing, with great steadiness, 
the operation of the extraction of a ball 
from his side ; and it happened to be the 
left. In the moment of his greatest suf- 
fering, he exclaimed, " an inch deeper, 
and you'll find the Emperor!" 

Had the Emperor' merited such heroic 
devotion ; — had he gloriously sacrificed 
himself in the field ;— or had his cause 
been as good as it was profligate, there 
would have been no allaying reserve in 
the pathos, and even sublimity of these 
singular effusions. But another reflec- 
tion unseasonably intrudes, which at once 
renders the kind of scenes described re- 
pulsive and unsuitable. It is to be fear- 
ed, that affections less amiable called 
forth these unexpected ebullitions. The 
vain, mortified, furious Frenchmen, were 
preaching themselves at the moment, and 
not their idoL The latter was too well 
c 2 



30 ANTWERP, 

known, even in the effulgence of his 
power, ever to be personally loved ; 
much more when the blindest of his wor- 
shippers could not but know that he had 
made a very safe and easy retreat in his 
own person ; leaving them to remember 
him in the horrors of the field and the 
hospital. But every Frenchman, identi- 
fying Napoleon's name with his own 
greatness, had committed himself so en- 
tirely, that to cease to cry out " vive 
VEmpereur," as long as breath or life 
lasted, was a thought not to be endured 
for a moment. A Frenchman, it is well 
known, lives for effect \ and if circum- 
stances only excite him enough, will die 
for effect too. Mortified vanity and 
wounded pride will impel him to any 
thing ; and it is therefore that a petulant 
and unyielding spirit, after defeat in bat- 
tle, is the last thing to leave, if it ever 
leaves, the French soldier, or the French 
nation. Man and woman of them tell 
the allied troops, who live as masters in 
their houses, in Paris itself, that nonob- 



ANTWERP. 31 

si ant, they are not conquered; while re- 
trospectively talking of their own days, 
of prosperity, in which the prostration 
of their most humiliated enemy never 
equalled their own, as it now is, we hear 
of nothing but French conquests, and 
their legitimate Iruits. A visit to the 
French requires a considerable stock of 
patience, among other requisites., 

From the hospital of the Corderie, I 
was conducted by a guide, who was pro- 
vided for me, into the impregnable cita- 
del. It is considered as a master-piece 
of fortification. The whole of the works, 
and the system of the garrison, were 
most obligingly explained to me by the 
governor, Colonel Crawfurd. 

I had observed on the outside of the 
citadel, several parties of men dressed 
in coarse red jackets, working at differ- 
ent sorts of hard labour, chained two and 
two by the legs with very heavy irons. 
The first party were attending two carts 
with a water cask on each ; and their 
march made r a woeful rattling. They 



32 ANTWERP. 

were the convicts, sent to Antwerp from 
all parts of the country, for a certain term 
of years, and many for life. Each party 
had a superintendent with it, and the de- 
scription who are allowed to work out of 
doors, are the better behaved, and those 
whose time is nearly expiring. With an 
under keeper, my only guarantee, I went 
into their great prison, within the citadel ; 
it consists of large wards, divided into 
stalls, placed head to head along the mid- 
dle range, so as to leave the walls free 
on both sides to pass along. A man on 
the outside unlocked a huge iron grated 
door, and in a moment my conductor and 
I were among some hundreds of despe- 
rate criminals. This was worse than the 
French prisoners. I had often heard 
that a visit to the felons of Newgate, is 
neither pleasant nor safe ; it seemed to 
me much worse to be surrounded by fo- 
reign ruffians of all sorts. To my amaze- 
ment, as we passed along, the poor crea- 
tures, many of whom had left their stalls 
to go over to the opposite wall, about the 



ANTWERP. 33 

length of their fetters, ran into their ken* 
nels, with a lamentable clanking, that we 
might not have to step, over their chains ; 
and one and all stood silent, and pulled 
off their caps as we passed. The gover- 
nor told me, that this was not owing to 
there being an overseer with me ; but 
that they would have done the same had 
I been alone. I should not, however, 
have made the experiment. 

The prison is kept well aired, and 
there are very few sick. The number 
is above 1000.^ Their submission results 
from the hopelessness of their situation, 
and the severe regime under which they 
are placed. To prevent even the thought 
of mutiny, loaded cannon are pointed to 
both sides of the prison. Two English 
regiments were in the citadel, the 37th 
and 25th. 

In the streets and walks were many 
wounded officers, taking gentle exercise. 
One very fine young man, an Irishman, 
I used the freedom of addressing. He 
was exceedingly emaciated and sadly 



34 ANTWERP, 

lame ; he had received 24 sabre wounds. 
His servant was with him, watching and 
supporting his steps, with " 69th" mark- 
ed on his cap. I was in quest of an offi- 
cer of that regiment, and found that he 
was in the same quarters with the officer 
to whom I had spoken* I walked slowly 
home with him, and saw the object of my 
inquiry ; he was quite recovered, and 
meant to proceed to Paris to join. They 
were very modest in their account of the 
battle, but naturally much pleased to hear 
that the country did them justice. 

In Antwerp much was said of the High- 
landers. A gentleman whom I saw, had 
seen the wounded arrive. He himself had 
been recognized and spoken to by a poor 
wounded Highlander, which absolutely 
gave him a kind of consideration in the 
crowd. He felt prouder at the moment 
than if a prince had smiled upon him. 

At Brussels, and wherever I went in the 
Netherlands, when the English troops 
were mentioned, whom they likewise much 
admired, the natives always returned to 






ANTWERP. 35 

the Scotch, with " Mais les Ecossois ;'> 
They are good and kind, as well as brave; 
they are the only soldiers who become 
" enfans de la famille" in the houses in 
.which they are billeted ; they even carry 
about the children, and do the domestic 
work. The favourite proverbial form of 
compliment was " Les Ecossois sont 
lions dans la bataille, et agneaux dans 
la maison*." There was a competition 
among the inhabitants who should have 
them in their houses ; and when they re- 
turned wounded, the same house they had 
left had its doors open, and the family 
went out some miles to meet " Notre 
Ecossois}." The people had many in- 
stances to relate of the generosity of these 
men ; after the battle, many Highlanders. 

* Lions in the field, and lambs in the house. 

On the Continent the Highland regiments are al- 
ways called Scotch, and not Montagnards, or High- 
landers, which, unknown to the foreigners, is really 
their just appellation ; for, as is well known, they 
are a mixture of Lowlanders and Highlanders, 

1 Our own Scotsman. 



36 i ANTWERP. 

themselves wounded, were seen binding 
up the wounds of the French, and assist- 
ing them with their arm. On the con- 
trary, it is well known, that very few 
wounded 'Englishmen fell into the hands 
of the French, without being murdered in 
cold bloods There cannot be a better 
te^t of two nations, a better decision of 
the question on which the peace and hap« 
piness of mankind should depend. 

With Mr. Annesly, the British consul, 
from whom and his interesting family I 
received much polite attention, I saw the 
docks constructed by Bonaparte, and two 
first rate ships of war lying in the Scheldt. 
The river was full of English vessels, and 
a number of the half-cured wounded were 
embarking for their homes. I went to the 
top of the tower of the great cathedral, 
nearly 400 feet high, and had a view at 
once of the whole of this vast town, with 
its citadel and fortifications. Its extent 
seemed at least equal to that of Edinburgh. 
The magnificent Scheldt winded under our 
eye, by Fort Lillo to Walcheren ; and a 
rich, verdant, wooded, and grain-covered 



ANTWERP. 37 

champaign, with many towns and villages^ 
extended as far as the eye could reach? 
all round. 

Antwerp itself is very grand and very 
ancient. It is most evidently Spanish^ 
both in the style of its buildings, and cos- 
tume sf the lower order of its inhabitants. 
The hotels, or rather palaces of many of 
the Flemish noblesse who live in Antwerp, 
are in a style in the highest degree grand 
and sumptuous, resembling the first order 
of houses at the west end of Piccadilly. 
But. in the same street, there is the conti- 
nental incongruity of an intermixture of 
houses of the meanest rank, which, added 
to the total want of side pavement and 
sunk areas, entirely destroys the idea to 
which the streets and squares of London, 
Dublin, and Edinburgh give rise, of a 
population of the superior classes, without 
admixture of the vulgar. 

The cathedral itself is one of the largest 
and most superb structures in the Nether- 
lands ; in the richest style of the florid 
Gothic, The towers are exquisitely or- 

i D 



38 ANTWERP. 

namented, and elegantly light. The in- 
side is also most splendid ; and I observed 
with much interest the blanks carefully 
preserved for the divine pictures of Ru- 
bens, the Ascent to the Cross, the Cruci- 
fixion, and Descent from the Cross, 
which he had painted as the altar pieces 
of the cathedral of his native city ; and 
which I afterwards saw actually taken 
down from the walls of the Louvre gal- 
lery, among the first in the progress of 
the great work of restitution* 



CHAP. II. 



BRUSSELS. 

Road from Antwerp to Brussels — Place tloydU 
—Park, with its buildings and ornaments — 
Preparations in Brussels for the battle — 
March of the troops — Of the Highland regU 
menls — Visit to Quatre Bras — Two English 
ladies — Retrograde movement of the British 
army — Alarms in Brussels — Wounded offi- 
cer — Lady who had lost her husband- 
Alarm of fire at Antwerp — Field immediate- 
ly cfter the battle — Robbery by a Prussian 
hussar — Irish officer and his young Belgian 
wife — Singular fortitude of the latter— Pa- 
lace of Laken — Theatre — King of the Ne- 
therlands present — A blacksmith necessary 
to disarm a Highland Serjeant. 

We passed through a country between 
Antwerp and Brussels, which seemed rich 



40 BRUSSELS. 

er than any we had yet seen, and mor 
varied in its beauty, from the undulations 
of its surface. Some places were of cor 
siderable acclivity; and on the ridge 
generally an elegant country-seat, wi 
gardens extending down to the road. Stil 
the latter, paved in the middle like our 
streets, was quite straight, and always en- 
closed with a row of high tFees on each 
side. The crops were in many places 
reaping ; two or three men cut with a short 
scythe (the Heinault) in one hand, and a 
kind of hook in the other, to gather the 
corn, and to serve the purpose of holding 
it tight till the other instrument strikes it. 
They seem to get on quickly pough in 
this manner; and here, as in Holland, 
much field labour was going forward, al- 
though it was Sunday. 

We passed through the town of Mech- 
line ;. so famous for its lace, and also for 
its cathedral. 

Sunday is a kind of market day in the 
Flemish towns ; the shops are all open ; 
and. before and after the church service. 



BRUSSELS- 4} 

the peasantry are buying cloth, provisions, 
and other articles. 

On entering Brussels, the same busy 
scene presented itself, in tenfold propor- 
tion to that at Mechline. 

I went with a guide out of the Namur 
gate, and about half a mile in the suburbs 
found the house of a relation of my own, 
and his v/ife, for some time resident at 
Brussels. 

Our way lay through a part of the splen- 
did new town of this capital of the Nether- 
lands. As we passed, it was striking to 
see on many doors, written in chalk, 1 , 2, 
or 3 blesses. This was probably for the 
convenience of the medical men. Some- 
times it was " 2 officiers blesses*," and 
on one door I read " 2 Anglais, et 2 
Ecossois blesses}." This was nearer and 
nearer Waterloo, and I felt a great venera- 
tion for these chalked doors. 

On entering the great square, or Place 
Royale, I was arrested by its magnificence, 

* Two officers wounded. 

t Two English and two Sdotch wounded. 

d2 



41 BRUSSELS. 

h seems about the size of the principal 
squares of London or Edinburgh, without 
an enclosed garden in the center. The 
houses are on a uniform and regular plan, 
singularly elegant, with a beautiful church 
of Grecian architecture in the centre of 
one side. The streets enter by the middle 
of the sides, and the corners are filled up 
by beautiful arcades or porticos, surmount- 
ed by statues, warlike trophies, &c. in 
white marble. I have seen nothing which 
gave me more the impression of a square 
of palaces than this noble place. The 
streets run out from the square, and en- 
close what is cajled the park or public 
walk. These houses, arranged in rows at 
least half a mile long, are in the same 
style of magnificence ; interrupted here 
and there, in their uniformity, by a sump- 
tuous public building, with noble porticos, 
and rails ; and a richness of white ornament 
in statuary on the cream-coloured brick 
with which they as well as those of the 
Place are built, which has really a royal 
appearance. The park is beautifully 



BUUS8ELS. 4^ 

planted, and traversed by walks in such 
a manner, that a magnificent palace 
seems to form a vista to each ; and every 
alley abounds in copies, in marble, from 
the finest statues, disposed with much 
taste. I have no where seen any thing 
so completely elegant and grand as this 
new town of Brussels, with the excep- 
tion of the Place de Louis XV. at Paris, 
with its magnificent vistas. The rest of 
the town is like Antwerp, only much in* 
ferior. Very Spanish is the appearance 
of the older houses ; and the women, as 
in Antwerp, wear the Spanish veil. 

In Brussels, perhaps, still more than in 
Antwerp, as so much nearer the scene, the 
battle was the constant and deeply inte- 
resting subject of conversation. With 
my friend and his lady, who had been in 
Brussels at the time, and had endured all 
the alarms, and run all the risks of that 
unparalleled period, it was naturally an 
inexhaustible subject. They had seen 
the ravages of the pla'gue in Malta, and 
co^e through many other difficulties. 



44 BRUSSELS. 



But all were forgotten in the scenes which 
they witnessed upon the late tremendous 
occasion* There is no way of giving a 
more lively account of these, than shortly 
relating, as they recounted it to me, their 
own share in the memorable days of June-. 
It is well known, that the news of the 
French having attacked the Prussians at 
Charleroi, on the 1 5th, reached the Duke 
of Wellington in the evening of that day, 
and produced his prompt departure for 
the rendezvous of the British army, at 
Quatre Bras. The inhabitants of Brussels 
were roused from their slumbers in the 
silence of the night, by the drums and 
bugles of alarm ; and pouring out of their 
houses, increased the confusion. My 
friend among the rest immediately repair- 
ed to the Place Royale, where, and in the 
park, . unagitated by alarm, our brave 
troops were making their preparations, 
and taking their places with all the com- 
posure of an ordinary parade. The ar- 
tillery, the cavalry, the wagon train, were 
all in perfect order in the park ; and set* 



BRUSSELS. 45 

ting out with alacrity to meet the enemy. 
The sun was rising when the march be- 
gan : every regiment went off with three 
cheers, in the midst of the inhabitants. 
' >vho had crowded every spot where they 
could get a last look of them, and follow 
■them with their blessings and prayers. 
My friend was naturally most affected 
with, and loved most to recount, the 
steady, serious, business-like march of the 
Highland regiments, who were about to 
justify, and exceed the utmost that has 
been said and expected of them in the 
Netherlands. u God protect the brave 
Scotch ;"- " God cover the heads of our 
gallant friends," w T ere often repeated as 
they passed along ; and many a flower 
was thrown from many a fair hand into 
their ranks. In three hours, the Place 
Royale and the Park were empty and si- 
lent-; and the inhabitants retired to their 
houses m a state of anxiety which needs 
no description. 

Very early next morning, my friend set 
for Quatre Bras, moved by a mosi 



4& BRUSSELS, 

natural sympathy, haying seen the regi-i 
ment in which he had once served, pass 
on to the scene of action. 

He was much affected by meeting on 
the road, on their way back from the sad 
field, two English ladies on horseback, 
unattended, in agonies of grief, which 
spoke too plainly its own cause. 

He saw the memorable scene of the 
short but brilliant affair of Quatre Bras ; 
an affair, which although forming really 
a part of Waterloo, has its own separate 
merits of the highest rank. Let it never 
be forgotten, that here, 9000 of the 
Guards and Highlanders, and some other 
gallant regiments, with about 4000 Bruns- 
wick troops and Belgians, without ca- 
valry or artillery, actually drove back 
Marshal Ney, at the head of 50,000 men, 
and bivouacked for the night on the ene- 
my's first position. Our loss was im- 
mense. The Highland garb was parti- 
cularly conspicuous among the slain. 
These brave men, cheered in the morn- 
ing by their admiring friends, when 



BRUSSELS, 47 

aaarching out of Brussels, lay dead ab- 
solutely in ranks. The striking circum- 
stance is noticed in a very distinct ac- 
count of the campaign, published in Paris 
by a French officer, who was himself in 
the whole of it ; to which I shall in the 
sequel, make frequent references*. 

In returning, my friend was astonished 
on looking round, to see the English 
troops in full retreat ; that admirable 
movement, which enabled Lord Welling- 
ton to concentrate his whole force at 
Waterloo, about eight miles in rear 
of Quatre Bras. He was soon over- 
taken, and his gig could not get on an 
inch further ; the road was completely 

# " The road, and skirts of the wood, were con* 
■" cealed by heaps of dead, of which the greater part 
u were Scotch. ' Their costume, which consists of a 
" kind of short wrapping coat, (unejaquette plissee,} 
M made of a sort of brown stuff interspersed with 
" stripes of blue, and which, hardly reaching so low 
" as the knee, leaves a part of the limb uncovered,, 
" singularly attracted the attention of the French sol- 
J* diers ? who gave them the name of sans culottes" 
Rdatwnparim Temoin Qcitfmre, 



48 BRUSSELSv 

choaked up. He thought of learn? 
it, and taking to the fields; but finding 
that he got on at least at the pace of the 
retreating army, he kept his seat, and ar- 
rived safe on the Saturday night at Brussels- 
It thundered and lightened dreadfully, 
Successive reports were spread in Brus- 
sels, that the French had carried all before 
them, and- were just at the gates, to mas- 
sacre.* plunder, and burn. About mid- 
day on the Saturday, Prussian soldiers 
from Charleroi and Sombref began lo ar- 
rive in hundreds at Brussels, They were 
at first mistaken for French; but when 
they were known, their flight and panic 
gave even greater alarm* Although at 
least 15 miles from a Frenchman, the 
horsemen galloped, cutting their horses 
with their sabres, the infantry ran, and 
the whole passed on the road under my 
friend's window ; at which his lady sat in 
indescribable anxiety and terror. No- 
body would admit the flying Prussians ; 
the gate Namur, and all the entrances to 
the town 5 were closed \ and many English 



BRUSSELS. • 

gentlemen were seen urging the fugitives 
to return to their colours. They lay down 
in crowds, on the pavements of the su- 
burbs, and on the boulevards under the 
-walls. 

Towards the afternoon, the wounded 
English of Quatre Bras began to arrive ; 
and instead of shutting the gates, multi- 
tudes went out to meet them, and each 
family was anxious to find if their own 
inmate was among them. Even the ladies 
attended them, and dressed their wounds. 
Sunday came, and the battle about nine 
miles off began to roar. It was described 
by the inhabitants of Brussels, as one un- 
interrupted peal of thunder in their ear? 
for eight hours. 

.# 

" Then great events were in the gale, 

" And each hour brought a varying tale." 

But the fears of the inhabitants always 
made the French successful. - What then 
must they have felt, when the English 
baggage passed through Brussels, aitf? 
n 



60 BRUSSELS. 

crowded the road to Antwerp. No won- 
der that the rumour was then believed, 
that the French had gained a complete 
victory. The entire population were now 
to fly ; a satisfactory piece of evidence of 
.ijo great attachment to the French. Nous 
■sommes perdus, nous somm.es perdus% 
was the only cry to be heard among the 
inhabitants. My friend resolved on flight 
on his lady's account, and had the extra- 
ordinary fortune to reach Mechline, about 
15 miles, unhurt. They got a place in 
the track-boat on the canal; and being 
close to the road, saw all its horrors. 
When horses fell, the waggon wheels 
crushed the rider: baggage was thrown 
off and carried away by the peasants to 
be cut open and plundered. Great sums 
of money were in this way lost ; and 
clothes, and other property spread over 
the fields. An English officer, who had 
lost a foot, and was carried on his ser- 
vant's back, came and begged to be taken 

* We are lost. 



BRUSSELS 51 

into the boat. He was known to my 
friend, who, although the passengers, in- 
tent on self-preservation, opposed it, by 
absolute force obtained his admission. 
At Mechiine they found it very difficult to 
obtain admission into a house ; and the 
difficulty was increased, when the people 
were told that the lady was ill. Most 
providentially they procured a carriage 
to Antwerp next day. On their arrival 
there, they heard an altercation between 
their coachman and a w r oman on the top, 
whom he had taken up, and would not let 
down till she paid a franc. They found 
this poor detenue to be the widow, newly 
So made, of a soldier killed at Quatre 
Bras ; and the mother of a child which, 
she had the day before seen crushed to 
death by a waggon wheel ! Many of the 
wounded w T ere travelling the same road ; 
some had lost a hand or an arm ; thou* 
sands were on foot ; and all sorts of car- 
riages and horses crowded the road and 
increased the danger. The scene was 
fceypnd description horrible ; but a feeling 



m BRUSSELS. 

of terror and self-preservation mtfcc'b dinu- 
pished the concern for the sufferers. This 
is very common in the horrors of war, — 
The persons crushed in the flight to Ant- 
werp, were thrown into the ditches 5 and 
all this was witnessed by my friend and 
his wife. The confusion was dreadful, 
yet no one had seen a single Frenchman,, 

When my friends arrived at Antwerp, 
the first sight they saw was heart-rending. 
An officer's lady had jusl learned that her 
husband's head had been shot off at Quatre 
Bras. The poor lady was running about 
the market-place, hysterical and delirious, 
with a little boy crying and running after 
her. " My husband is not dead, he is just 
coming; his head is not shot off." The 
people did all they could to console her. 

Hardly had they sat down in Antwerp, 
when .an alarm of a different kind was 
spread, which added to their terrors. A 
servant of the hotel ran into the. room, 
almost breathless, calling "feu, feu, feu!" 
"Where is the fire?" — "0, it is in a 
vessel on the canal, in the midst of several 



BRUSSELS. 35 

powder ships, and the whole town wilt 
share the fate of Leyden." To their 
great relief, they were soon informed that 
the fire was got under. 

In the course of the Monday, the news 
of the defeat of the French arrived ; and 
on the following day my friend and his 
wife returned to Brussels. On the Wed- 
nesday he visited the field of Waterloo. 
His account of it is dreadful. The first 
thing which struck him at a distance, was 
the quantity of caps and hats strewed on 
the ground* It appeared as if the field 
had been covered with crows. When he 
came to the spot, the sight was truly 
shocking. At first there was a prodigious 
preponderance of British slain, which 
looked very ill - r but more in advance, the 
revenge made itself dreadfully marked, 
for ten French lay dead for one British. 
The field was so much covered with blood, 
that it appeared as if it had been com- 
pletely flooded with it ; dead horses seem- 
ed innumerable, — and the peasantry em- 
ployed in burying the dead, generally 
e2 



54 BRUSSELS 

stripfc the bodies first. Of course the.$# 
people got a vast booty, when they ven- 
tured out of the neighbouring wood, after 
the battle ; many of them made some hun- 
dred pounds. A great quantity of cap 
plates, cuirasses, &c. were taken by them 
and sold as relics. 

The scene was for a week exposed to 
another danger. Prussian stragglers rob- 
bed many persons on the field. I saw an 
inhabitant of Brussels who, with three 
others, was surveying the field on the 
Thursday after the battle, and had reached 
the road about a quarter of a mile beyond 
Belle Alliance, when round a rising 
ground galloped a Prussian hussar with 
drawn sabre, who was amongst thern in 
an instant : u Your watches, your money, 
or I. will cut you down f" The, marauder's 
commands were obeyed; and when the 
four people returned to the village of Mont 
St. John, they related their mal- adventure 
to four of our own countrymen, who con- 
fessed that they too had allowed this for- 
tunate hussar to sarve them in the same 



BRUSSELS bo 

manner. I do not think that every four 
Englishmen would have been robbed by 
one man, however completely armed or 
mounted. 
. I had the good fortune to travel from 
Brussels to Paris, with a young Irish offi- 
cer and his wife^an Antwerp lady of only 
sixteen ; of great beauty, and with man- 
ners of much innocence and naivete. The 
officer had been in the battle of Quatre 
Bras, as well as of Waterloo ; and to him 
I owe much of my minutest and most in- 
teresting information. An anecdote of 
his fair Belgian, which he justly took 
some pride in relating, will further serve 
to give an idea of the kind of scenes then 
occurring, the horrors and the dangers of 
which it is so difficult to describe. He 
was living in cantonments at Nivelles, ha- 
ving his wife with him. The unexpected 
advance of the French called him off on a 
moment's notice to Quatre Bras ; but he 
left with his wife his servant, one horse, 
and the family baggage, which was pack- 
ed upon a large ass, Retreat at the time 



56 BRUSSELS. 

was not anticipated ; but being suddenly 
ordered on the Saturday morning, he con- 
trived to get a message to his wife to make 
the best of her way, attended by the ser- 
vant, to Brussels. The servant, a foreign- 
er, had availed himself of the opportunity 
to take leave of both master and mistress, 
and made off with the horse, which had 
been left for the use of the latter. With a 
firmness becoming the wife of a British 
officer, she boldly commenced on foot her 
own retreat of 25 miles, leading the ass, 
and carefully preserving the baggage. 
No violence was dared by any one to so 
innocent a pilgrim, but no one could af- 
ford to assist her. She was soon in the 
midst of the columns of the retreating Bri- 
tish army, and much retarded and endan- 
gered by the artillery. Her fatigue was 
great ; it rained in water-spouts, and the 
thunder and lightning were dreadful in 
the extreme. She continued to advance, 
and got upon the great road from Charle- 
roi to Brussels at Waterloo, when the ar- 
my on the Saturday evening were taking 



BRUSSELS. & 

up their line for the awful conflict. In so 
extensive a field, and among 80,000 men, 
it was in vain to seek her husband 3 she 
knew that the sight of her there would 
only have embarrassed and distressed 
him ; slie kept slowly advancing to Brus- 
sels all the Saturday night ; the road 
choked with all sorts of conveyances, 
waggons, and horses ; multitudes of native 
fugitives on the road, and flying into the 
great wood ; and many of the wounded 
working their painful way, dropping at 
€very step, and breathing their last. Ma- 
ny persons were actually killed by others, 
if by chance they stood in the' way of 
their endeavours to save themselves. And 
to add to the horrors, the rain continued 
unabated, and the thunder and light, 
ning still raged, as if the heavens were 
torn to pieces. Full twelve miles fur- 
ther in the night this young woman 
marched, up to her knees in mud, her 
boots worn entirely off so that she was 
barefooted;- but still unhurt, she conti- ^ 
#ued to advance 5 and although thousands 



6S BRUSSELS. ' 

lost their baggage, and many their lives, 
she calmly entered Brussels in the morn- 
ing in safety, and without the loss of an 
article. 

In a few hours after her arrival, com- 
menced the cannon's roar of the tremen- 
dous Sunday ; exposed to which, for ten 
hours, she knew her husband to be ; and 
after a day and night of agony, she was 
amply rewarded by finding herself in his 
arms, he unhurt, and she nothing the 
worse, on the Monday. The officer told 
me the tale with tears in his eyes. He 
called her his " dear little woman," and 
said she became more valuable to him 
every day. I never saw a more elegant 
gentleman-like young man ; and assured- 
ly his pretty Belgian seemed almost to 
adore him. It gave additional value to 
the foregoing anecdote, that I had it from 
the actors in the scene described. When 
I remarked that it was quite in the spirit 
of Elizabeth of Siberia, the lady ex- 
claimed, u Ah ! ma mere dit la meme 
chose* /" 

* "My mother made the same remark A r 



BRUSSELS, 59 

We paid a visit to the beautiful palace 
of Laken, in the vicinity ; from which Bo- 
naparte had dated the proclamations to 
the Belgians, taken in his baggage. It is 
a superb house, something like the Regis- 
ter Office of Edinburgh, with the same 
kind of dome, but Tiaving a much more 
elegant appearance, from its fine orna- 
ments in statuary. It is situated on the 
summit of a beautiful sloping ground, all 
of which is laid out with great taste, in 
the manner of English landscape garden- 
ing. A Tivoli temple adorns the grounds, 
very inferior indeed, in both size and cor- 
rect architecture, to St. Bernard's Well, 
near Edinburgh, which is certainly one of 
the most perfect buildings of the kind out 
of Italy. The apartments in the palace 
arein high style and taste, though far in- 
ferior in magnificence to those of the pa- 
lace at Amsterdam ; but in convenience 
and elegance I think they have a decided 
advantage. Laken, as well as Amster- 
I dam, was furnished from Paris by Bona- 
| parte. His favourite apartments are 



m BRUSSELS, 

shown, as a kind of trophies, by the ser- 
vants of the present royal owner; "his- 
bed-room, and above all, his bath, A 
Dutch young lady, who was of our party . 
w r as persuaded to pull the gold tassel of 
the bath bell, which Napoleon must of- 
ten have handled ; but with great horror, 
and perfect gravity, immediately rubbed 
her hand to wipe off the pollution. 

We saw the grand museum, to which* 
purpose the ancient palace of the Spanish 
government of this country is converted ; 
the library appears very good, and Ithe 
paintings are numerous, and by the first 
masters of nearly all the schools. We 
likewise saw a private collection, be^ 
longing to an old gentleman, and were 
much pleased with it. The proprietor, 
M, Bourtine, went through the rooms with 
us himself. We went to the theatre, 
which is much superior to that of Ant- 
werp ; and saw part of a French comedy. 
The king, who had just arrived from Hol- 
land, was present, whkh gave us an op- 
portunity of observing^how he was receiv- 



BRUSSELS, 61 

ed by his new subjects. Nothing could 
be more loyal and flattering than their re- 
ception of him ; and many allusions were 
made to the brave Prince and his glorious 
wound : A most blessed wound for the 
House of Orange. 

I delivered a collection of Numbers of 
the Transactions of the Royal Society of 
Edinburgh, to Mr. Van Mons, a Brussels 
savant. Even his conversation was all 
of Waterloo, and, that interminable theme, 
the Scotch regiments. One Highland ser- 
geant, formerly billeted in Mr. Van 
Mons' house, came back, with the basket 
hilt of his sword so bruised, that he could 
not get his hand out of it, till relieved by 
a blacksmith ! He made very light of his 
wounds, and only hoped soon to be " at 
the enemy again." They had not dis- 
armed him at least ! 

In crossing the grand market place of 
Brussels from Mr. Van Mons ? house, I 
was much surprised to see women riding 
after the fashion of the other sex. One 
was sitting on a tall horse, haranguing a 
f 



62 BRUSSELS. 

crowd as a mountebank doctress, attend- 
ed by a man who beat a drum. Her flu- 
ency of speefch was great. 

Indeed I saw women frequently ad- 
dressing the public in long speeches, re- 
commending their wares, or glossing over 
their impositions. 

A foolish report was current in Brus- 
sels, that the Netherlands were to be 
exchanged by Holland with England 
for Hanover. The arrangement how- 
ever, seemed to give very general satis- 
faction. Nothing can exceed the at- 
tachment of the Flemings in general to 
the English, and the change of senti- 
ment of the former friends of France since 
the battle. All benefit from "France is 
now at an end, and loyalty has become 
the best policy. It will much improve ? 
as public affairs get better arranged. 
The men are every where training to 
arms for the House of Orange, who have 
risen immensely in public esteem since 
the prince's wound. 

I learned from my friends, that they 



BRUSSELS. 63 

had soon found out my wounded relation 
in the Guards, formerly mentioned ; who 
told them that he was shot in the famous 
wood at Quatre Bras ; and when carried 
.to the rear, had recollection enough to be 
sensible that three attempts were made 
by the enemy's 4irailleurs to take his life* 
He spent the night in a cottage which 
was soon filled with the wounded ; seve- 
ral of whom died before the morning* 
Fortunately for him, the enemy's troops 
did not move early next day ; and having 
set off some hours before the retreat, he 
passed Waterloo without being overtak- 
en. He was held upon his horse by his 
servant, assisted by several soldiers of 
his own company, who were not so se- 
verely wounded, and was repeatedly laid 
down on the road-side, exhausted with 
pain and loss of blood. Had the enemy 
driven back the British, it is evident, he 
must have remained in their hands. 

He has himself, since I have seen him 5 
confirmed the above account. 



CHAP. Ill 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

Forest of Soigni-^Villagc of Waterloo — Sta- 
tion of lord Wellington — Description of the 
field — Discouraging bivouac—Spirit of an 
Irish officer — Splendid charge by the Life 
Guards— Numbers of the two armies — Ex- 
clamation of Bonaparte — Three first attacks 
— Effect of their failure on Napoleon — 
Infantry attacks, a kind of breathing to the 
British troops — Impatience of the British 
troops to be led on — Their constancy and 
firmness — Farm house of La Haye Sainte — 
Sir William De Lancey — Colonel Miller, 
and Captain Cur son — Horror of the field 
the day after the battle — Wreck yet remain" 
ing 9 leaves of books and letters — Chivalrous 
conduct of the Prince of Orange — Anecdote 
cf a nameless Regiment of volunteer light 
horse — \2th light Dragoons, young officer 
of that regiment who fell — Brigade of 30th , 



VISIT TO THE FIELD, & 

mid another regiment — Several anecdotes — • 
&9th regiment — Hougoumont and the guards 
— Hovel of La Belle Alliance, interesting 
visit to — Country over which the enemy fled 
—'Admirable- manoeuvre of the 52d and 7 1 st 
regiments — Visit to the station of Napoleon 
— Lacoste the farmer — Answer of Napoleon 
to a message about an English battery — 
His compliments to the British troops — His 
interview with a British officer— Account 
by a French officer, of his behaviour — Ap- 
pearance of the Prussians — Final effort of 
Napoleon— Its defeat by the Highlanders 
and Scots Greys — Charge by the whole 
British Army — Beautiful compliment from 
the Prussian to the British cavalry — French 
officers account of the route of the French 
Army— Flight of Napoleon — Contrast of 
the conduct of Frederick the Great — Me- 
grefs remark on the death of Charles the 
XII. — Specimen of the spoil of a poor 
Highlander— Anecdote of a peasant woman 
on the field. 

With that conflict of feelings, which 

the expectation of soon seeing the scene 

v 2 



66 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

of such a battle as Waterloo naturally 
occasioned, our party, consisting of three, 
was in readiness by six in the morning on 
the 31 st of July. When we had mounted 
our carriage, we called to the postilion 
...-" Waterloo l??-V" Oui, Monsieur, VAn- 
glois," he answered, with a smack of his 
whip, and an emphasis which showed 
that he felt that conducting Englishmen 
there, was conducting them to their own 
proper domain. There had been rain 
during the night, and the morning was 
gloomy : having, as we were told, the 
same appearance as that of the 18th of. 
June ; of course we would not have ex- 
changed it for the brightest sunshine. 
The ground would be wet,— but so it 
was on the day of the battle ; and further, 
in point of time, we should just arrive 
about the hour it commenced. 

After driving three or four miles, we 
entered the awful forest of Soigne. It 
covers an immense extent of country 
from east to west, but is only about six 
or seven miles broad, where the road 
passes through it to Waterloo, 



ViSIT. TO THE FIELD. 67 

The impressions of an Englishman on 
entering this wood, are much enhanced 
by the knowledge of the fact, that it was 
the great source of supply of ship-timber 
•for Napoleon's naval schemes at Antwerp, 
and already had built several ships of the 
line. The same forest which was intend- 
ed to furnish the means of her humiliation, 
protected the rear of her victorious army, 
on the day, when, single handed, Eng- 
land, at one blow, destroyed the power 
of her destroyer for ever. 

Every foot of the road was interesting, 
as it held its very straight cckirse through 
the w.ood. We contrasted the gloomy 
quiet of our journey, — a few peasants 
going to their early labour,-— with its ac- 
cumulated horrors on the day of the re- 
treat of the baggage and wounded of the 
army ; the multitudes who dropt and 
died ; the numbers who were crushed to 
death ; the hurry, the alarm, the confu- 
sion, the cries, and shrieks, and groans 
of that dreadful scene ; and the interest- 
ing unprotected " Elisabeth?' steadily 



68 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

and safely, by a miracle, holding her way 
in the middle of it. Our carriage kept 
the paved chaussee, or centre of the way ; 
the two sides, of about 15 feet wide each, 
being deep and muddy, as they were on 
the great occasion. The whole breadth 
of the road seemed to be 40 or 50 feet. 
The trees which bounded it on each side 
w 7 ere tall, and kept trimmed like a very 
high hedge or screen ; beyond them im- 
mediately commenced the thick wood, in 
all the irregularity of nature. Here the 
wounded had crawled, and died in great 
numbers ; much baggage had been plun- 
dered ; and the whole population of the 
country had fled for safety. 

Our postilion pointed out the little 
mounds where men and horses had been 
interred ; they were apparent every hun- 
dred yards. The sepulture had been 
hurried and imperfect, especially of the 
horses ; occasional hoofs, and even limbs, 
showing themselves. Often bayonet scab- 
bards stuck out ; and caps, shoes, and 
pieces of cloth, scarcely in the gloom dis- 



VISIT- TO THE FIELD. 6$ 

unguishable from the mud in which they 
lay, gave indication of the spots where 
many a.soldier, after bleeding in the field, 
and toiling along the road to expected 
arid and comfort, unassisted, almost unpiti- 
ed, by the self-engaged sufferers who saw 
him fall, had sunk to rise no more. Some 
rain fell as we were bestowing a passing 
survey upon these affecting monuments of 
the brave, in a situation the most dismal 
we had ever beheld. 

Waterloo's village, and small neat 
church with its brick built dome, was 
now in our view, situated in a recess of 
the wood evidently cleared for it. The 
road was now quite out of the forest ; 
which, however, blackened the whole re- 
gion to east and west as far as the eye 
could reach. In this poor hamlet, which 
history is to name with veneration as 
long as time endures, the peasants have 
been at pains to preserve the chalking 
on the doors ; on which we recognized the 
well-known names of celebrated officers, 
or the offices of the several departments 
at head-quarters. 



10 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

We were immediately surrounded by 
the people, offering for sale, with great 
importunity, relics of the field ; particu- 
larly the eagles which the French sol- 
diers wore as cap plates. A few cuiras- 
ses, both the back and the breast pieces, 
were likewise held up to us, as well as 
sabres, bayonets, and other spoil. 

We drove a mile forward to the still 
smaller hamlet of Mont St. John, by a 
gradual ascent of the road ; to right and 
left of which, the British army bivouack- 
ed on the eve 6f the battle ; having ad- 
vanced over the high ground in the morn- 
ing to the southern slope facing the en- 
emy, on fair open ground, without an ad- 
vantage, to decide the fate of the world. 

Mont St. John is quite behind the Bri- 
tish line ; and had its name given by Bo- 
naparte to what was properly the farm 
house of La Haye Sainte, which he did 
succeed in carrying ; but certainly he 
never was so far advanced as Mont St. 
John; indeed he never did, for more 
than a few minutes at any time, succeed 
in penetrating the English line, 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 7* 

We left our carriage at this last hamlet, 
and walked on to the field with nervous 
anticipation. To the right and left were 
the multiplied marks of the artillery 
wheels, as rivalling "lightning's course 
in ruin and in speed" they had careered 
to their station in the memorable line. 
Whole tracts were marked by the feet of 
the cavalry, often fetlock deep in the 
mud. The last homes of the brave be- 
gan to appear, with the larger tumuli of 
their horses, more frequent as we ap- 
proached the scene of contest. Keeping 
still the great road, we came to a tree 
which formed the precise centre of the 
British line ; the well chosen station of 
the duke of Wellington, when not occa- 
sionally visiting other parts of the posi- 
tion to confirm the unflinching spirit of 
his gallant comrades. It commanded a 
full view of the intermediate plain, and 
the whole of the enemy's vast force upon 
the adverse slope and country beyond it, 
with every movement made or threaten- 
ed by him. 



12 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

Nothing is more false than the French 
apology, (added to their never-failing pre- 
tence of being overpowered by numbers,) 
that the British position was naturally 
strong, and carefully fortified, Unen- 
trenched stood the British army, along its 
whole position, on a slope so gentle, that 
a coach driving up would not slacken 
pace ; and to the ridge of which the 
French cavalry found no difficulty in gal- 
loping at full speed to the very bayonets 
of their opponents, who threw themselves 
into squares, their only entrenchments, to 
receive the charge. It was, to use a fa- 
vourite English phrase, just the place 
for "a fair set to ; a clear field, and no 
favour." 

We had the good fortune to meet with 
a very intelligent English officer, who 
had been in the action, and who had that 
day paid his first visit to the field, after 
recovering of his wound. 

From lord Wellington's station, we 
stood and gazed on the whole scene ; not 
daring to break silence for some minutes. 



VISIT TO THE HELD. 13 

And deep was now the silence of the vast 
sepulchre of 20,000 men, contrasted with 
the roar and the carnage of the battle. 
The gloomy weather still lasted ; and was 
valued by us, as peculiarly suitable to 
the scene we were contemplating'. The 
imagination is incalculably aided by view- 
ing the scene of a memorable battle. The 
actors being generally familiar to us, we 
can easily people the field with them ; 
and become thereby actually present, in 
conception, at the moment of the event. 
Indeed, so very simple is the field of Wa- 
terloo, that a conception of very ordina- 
ry power may quite take it in from de- 
scription alone. Although here and there, 
varied by inequalities and undulations, it 
will serve all popular purposes to say, 
that at the distance from each other of 
about a mile, the contending armies oc- 
cupied parallel high grounds, sloping with 
almost equal declivity, to a plain of about 
half a mile broad which intervened. 
The English line, or rather two lines, 
extended about a mile and a half; — the 



74 VISIT TO THE FlELDr. 

French masses something more than two 
miles* Tlte Brussels road ran at right 
angles through both armies 5 forming the 
centre of each. On this road, in one 
line, are the villages of Waterloo, and 
Mont St. John, arid the farm houses of 
La Haye Sainte, and La Belle Alliance ; 
and the only other place which requires 
to be referred to, is the memorable Cha- 
teau of Hougomont, advanced a short 
way in front of nearly the right of the 
British position. The road from Brus- 
sels to Nivelles, which branches off at 
Waterloo from the great road already de- „ 
scribed, passed the right of the army ; 
which last being thrown back into a curve, 
crossed the angle formed by the two roads 
like the scale ef a quadrant. A number 
of smaller roads and foot-paths intersect- 
ed the field in all directions, none of them, 
of any importance in the affair, except-* 
ing always those which admitted the 
brave Prussians to their share of the 
glory of delivering the world. 



e VISIT TO THE FIELD. ?5 

The whole will at once be illustrated, 
by glancing at the Plan annexed to this 
volume. 

The night before the battle, the troops 
lay down, already drenched wit'h the hea- 
vy rain, in the deep mud of the ground. 
Every one must have remarked, that by 
a singular fatality, our brave army have 
often had very unfavourable weather for 
their greater exploits. The country had 
been quite dry till the movement of the 
troops from their cantonments ; but on 
the 1 7 th, the rain, and thunder and light* 
ning continued almost without interims- 
sion, till the morning of Waterloo, when 
it ceased ; and the weather became fine 
again. Fortunately, there was too much 
excitement of spirit, for this physical in* 
convenience to be much felt, either at the 
time or afterwards. The men were fresh 
from cantonments ; and their toil, though 
severe, was short. Never did British 
army take the field in finer condition. 
The cavalry, especially, felt the benefit 
gf fighting, before losing the effects of 



76 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

their superior keeping, by the toils and 
privations of a compaign. 

The Irish officer, formerly mentioned 
as my travelling companion to Paris, re- 
counted the effect of the wet bivouac on 
himself, in a manner which gives a striking 
view of the high feeling of the men who 
sustain in the field the honour of our coun- 
try* When he got up about six o'clock 
in the morning, he could not stand with a 
violent shivering ; but fell down in the 
mud again. He made several efforts, but 
in vain. Without dreaming, when he re- 
counted the circumstance, of an inference 
favourable to himself, which he was not 
aware that I was drawing, he described 
his feelings to have been perfect agony, 
arising from the dread that he should 
not be able to do his duty. An hour or 
two, and a little brandy revived him ; and 
when he found he could stand, his relief 
of mind amounted to the most exquisite 
joy he ever felt in his life. Yet 130,000 
ferocious enemies were full in his view, 
— he distinctly heard the shout of " viva 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 77 

PEmpereur," the signal for the tremen- 
dous onset ; death was coming on in its 
most threatening aspect ; in the gloom of 
the morning, the vast, broad, and deep 
masses of the enemy, with their mighty 
reserves yet further and further back till 
they seemed Urmeet the horizon, appear- 
ed, as he expressed himself, as if the fo- 
rest of Soigne had changed its situation* 
Yet did this fearless youth feel his heart 
leap for joy, when he found himself able, 
for the honour of Ireland, to stand up to 
the coming storm ; on higher principle 
yet than the Oneida chief, 

M Fearing but the shame of fear." 
I heard in Paris, an officer of the 95th, 
with the same manly absence of self-gra- 
tulation, give a similar account of his 
own trials on the memorable dawn of Wa- 
terloo. Who can wonder at the virtue 
with which the entire day was sustained? 
when such were the feelings with which 
the battle was waited for, and begun ? 

When cooking their breakfasts, the 
droops were called to desist, by the spirit- 
o 2 



73 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

stirring preparative from the aids-de-camp 
passing at full gallop—" Stand to your 
arms, the French are moving." They 
had moved. An immense array of cuiras- 
siers had already swept across the plain, 
to embarrass the British deployments. A 
momentary alarm and confusion were cre- 
ated among our infantry and cavalry. 
The life-guards, who had mainly covered 
the retreat the day before, had the honour 
of the first dash at the enemy oa the 18th 
of June ; the commencement only of much 
good service of theirs throughout the day. 
No charge on that field is described as 
more magnificent than this, the first from 
these brilliant and tremendous troops. — 
The shock was not waited for by the ene- 
my ; a moment cleared the w r hole front at- 
tacked ; and in no part of the day was the 
flight of the cuirassiers more unequivocal, 
except at the termination of the battle, 
than it was immediately after this, their 
first onset. 

A sentiment of pride is universal in the 
country, because of the well earned dis- 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 71 

Tinction of the household troops of both 
arms ; and with one voice is hailed the 
wise abandonment of that system, so un- 
just to them, which kept them exclusively 
for show, and denied to the British mo- 
narch the high sight of a circle of proved 
warriors immediately around his person, 
of the same cast with those who carry his 
name with their own to the remotest quar- 
ters of the world*. 

As we stood on our commanding spot, 
the first thought was most naturally of the 
numbers of the contending armies respect- 
ively; The British were stated by Bona- 
parte himself at 30,000, and certainly they 
have never been made out to have been 
more. Of these net more than 30,000 
were actually British ; the rest were Ger- 
mans, Belgians and Dutch. There was 
assuredly no corps of Prussians in the bat- 
tle before the evening. 

# I owe my knowledge of this splendid incident, 
(since the former edition) to an officer of high rank 
who witnessed it. I esteem it a great additipato the 
narrative ia many points of view. 



8<J VISIT TO THE FIELD, 

The French army certainly were 
130,000, making the enormous balance in 
their favour of 50,000 men ; and, be it ne- 
ver forgotten, all French, and the best 
troops of France, Marshal Ney, in his 
justification to the Duke of Otranto, calls 
them, " that fine and numerous army ;" a 
character at once decisive of the question, 
when it is considered what that army must 
have been which a French marshal would 
think of so characterising. But, " The 
Relation," published in Paris by a French 
officer, formerly referred to, states in 
plain terms, without intending to diminish, 
and certainly with the reverse of interest 
to exaggerate, that the French army which 
attacked the Duke of Wellington, was 
120,000 strong. His testimony is the 
more satisfactory as to the absolute num«* 
bers of the French, that with true national 
feeling, in his ignorance of the truth, he 
ludicrously overrates the British force, 
and brings fresh masses out of the wood 
vf Soigne just as they were needed ; 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. $1 

^ pour ecra<er par le nombre*" the 
overwhelmed columns of the French. In 
truth the British army were a mile and a 
half from the utmost skins of the wood, 
&nd never had one man within it : And 
so far from being crushed or overlaid, the 
masses, and of the French guard too, were 
often routed by the bold dash of an almost 
incredible small proportion of their num- 
bers, nay sometimes, as will afterwards 
be told, of the Highlanders and Scots 
Greys. This happened in many other 
parts of the field besides, by the prodigies 
of nearly isolated, individual valour. 

Bonaparte knew the number of his al- 
ready devoted adversaries well ; and with 
his usual presumption expressed great 
astonishment to see their undismayed front 
on that side of the forest. His fear was 
that they would escape him in the nighty 
and he exclaimed, on first seeing their 
order of battle, with the dawn — " Ah f 
je les tiens donc^ ces Angloisi /" 

The regular battle, it is well known, 

:* u To crush by numbers." 

t « Ah ! I have them then ? these English !" 






£^- VISIT TO THE FIEL£). 



commenced by the almost simultaneous 
advance (and we distinctly saw their 
course) of three entire corps d'armee on 
the right, left, and center of the British 
line. The attack on the right had for*its 
first object the carrying of the post of 
Hougomont, the key of the position ; in 
possession of which, the French could 
have turned the British right. That co^ 
liimn had the shortest way to move ; and, 
under King Jerome, it was there the cannon 
and musketry first began. As admitted 
by " The Relation," fresh reinforcements 
were sent to this scene of carnage repeat-? 
edly to no purpose. The utmost success 
of probably 30,000 men, was obliging the 
light companies of the 1st, 2d, and 3d foot 
guards, under the command of Lord Sak 
toun, to take refuge rvithin the post, inr 
stead of defending the small wood on the 
outside of it. The post itself was never 
occupied for a mbment. The guards kept 
it, in spite of grape, and musketry, and 
balls, and shells, and flames; till they is- 
sued from it victorious in the hour pf ven- 
geance. 



tflSIT tO TltE FIELt). 8S 

The corps d'armee destined for the left, 
(the 6th,) soon arrived at the first attack 
in that quarter about the center of the 
British left wing : but were calmly receiv- 
ed and repulsed, by the admirably served 
artillery, and by the 42d, 79th, and 92d 
Highlanders, supported, it is believed, by 
the 1st and 28th regiments, under the la- 
mented Sir Thomas Picton. The whole 
slope was in our view* Nothing could be 
more tremendous than the mode of attack ; 
it was always headed by artillery, which 
discharged showers of iron grape shot, 
each bullet larger than a walnut*. It was 
a battle, on the part of the French, of 
cavalry -and cannon, both equipped as if 
by magic, and much more formidable than 
had ever been known, in the French ar- 
mies even, to take the field. " LPartil * 
leroe^.says " the Relation," u se porta, 
en avant, sur toute la ligne, et les co« 
lonnes la suivirent].^ Heading these 

* Some of these dreadful balls we found on the field, 
t " The artillery advanced in front alon^ the ^rhole 
lij$ ? and the columns followed^" 



34 VISIT TO THE FIELU, 

columns were the iron-cased cuirassiers, 
in as complete mail, breast and back, as 
in the days of that defensive armour ; upon 
which the musket balls were heaTd to ring 
as they glanced off without injuring or 
even stunning the wearer. These men 
at arms, had immense infantry columns 
of support at their backs. • 

A stunted hedge bounded each side of 
a narrow cross rqad, which ran along the 
whole of the British left wing, joining the 
great road near the Duke of Wellington's 
tree already mentioned. Jn the hedge 
there was a number of gaps, which had 
been made to serve as a kind of embra- 
sures for the line t>f the British cannon 
of the left wing ; and a trifling bank, 
only here and there two or three feet 
high, on which the hedge grew, and in 
which apertures for the guns were cut 
where necessary, was the only thing re- 
sembling shelter which any portion of 
our artillery enjoyed ;— and may have 
given occasion to the author of " the 
Relation" to speak of appearances of 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 8& 

fresh earth .turned up in the British po- 
sition* 

When the cannon and infantry had 
staggered the masses of the enemy, and 
•somewhat calmed their fury ; round the 
extremity of the cross road, full on the 
flank of the foe,— horses in perfect con- 
dition, men in steady determination, — 
wheeled, like a whirlwind, the Royals, 
Greys, and Enniskillens — England, Scot- 
land, and Ireland, in high rivalry and ir- 
resistible union*. In vain, fof the second 
time, the iron cases,— the cuirassiers were 
" bouleverses et culbutes} ^ (in the words 
of " The Relation,") their cannon was 

* I always have been, and see more and more 
reason to continue of opinion, that in our army the 
three nations ought to be separately regimented- 
The noble emulation resulting from national feeling 
is a more heart-felt stimulus to the soldier, than may 
at first sight be supposed. It is a subject well wor- 
thy of consideration. 

t There is no translating these expressive words, 
when describing the effect of a charge of cavalry, 
B oyer's dictionary renders the first to turn'topsv tv.Y- 
vy, and the second to throw heels over head. 



S6 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

deserted and taken ; and the columns of 
infantry were thrown into such confusion, 
that they had just time to get beyond the 
range of the prudent pursuit of their ad- 
versaries, whose warfare yet was defen- 
sive. The dragoons and infantry, with 
their captured cannon and eagles, calmly 
returned to their place in position, to 
await the xiext advance of the enemy*. 

If our present ground had the well 
fought round now faintly described in 
full view ; so had Napoleon's station, 
about a mile along the road from where 
we stood. With the poor farmer Lacoste 
pinioned on horseback beside him. stood 
the Emperor ; unable to conceal his as- 
tonishment at the recoil and almost flight 
of his finest troops ; and constrained, in 

f. A brief commentary on a rather sudden change 
of politics in one of the French cuirassiers, when on 
the point of being cut down by a soldier of the Greys, 
was overheard on this occasion. The French call-? 
ed out " Five le Roi." " Gude faith, freend," said 
his pursuer in purest Scotch, " gif ye cry that, ye, 
shuMna be here," 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 81 

spite of himself, repeatedly to - mutter 
compliments to the spirit, rapidity, and 
steadiness of the British cavalry. " These 
English fight admirably," said he to 
Soult ; " but they must give way."— 
" No, Sire, they prefer being cut to pie- 
ces," was the answer of one who knew 
something of them. The gray horses 
especially struck him, and he often re- 
peated, quell es superbes troupes ! 

The centre attack was most of this 
time in full activity, and overwhelming 
efforts were making to gain the farm 
house of La Haye Sainte, advanced two 
or three hundred yards from the British 
position. Here fortune bestowed one 
melancholy smile on Napoleon's arms. 
No moment even of temporary success 
was theirs in the line ; but they did es- 
tablish themselves, with twenty to one, 
in the post of La Haye Sainte, in conse- 
quence, as the Duke of Wellington's ac- 
count testifies, of the unexpected failure 
of the ammunition of a detachment of 
the German legion, to which its defence 



8» VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

was committed ; a failure which, from 
the position and great strength of the 
enemy, it was at the time considered im~ 'z 
possible to supply. This very limited, 
and, as it turned out bootless, success of 
the enemy, it appears, is matter of much 
self reproach to the commander in chief. 
He has been heard to use very hard 
words, when speaking of what he calls 
his want of presence of mind on the oc- 
casion. It was impossible to send am- 
munition in by the gates at the two sides 
of the farm yard, but it might have ap- 
proached the back of the house, under 
cover of the British fire, and been hand- 
ed in by an aperture made on pur- 
pose. Considering what the general on 
such a day had to think of, it will not be 
thought surprising, that with all his com- 
manding influence, the Duke of Welling- 
ton has not succeeded in inducing any of 
his auditors to join in the accusation. 
He has one comfort ; the post, when car- 
ried with immense loss, did no good to 
ihe captors. It neutralized a large 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 89 

force; and never for a moment shook 
the British centre. 

The three attacks now described, we 
were told, might serve as a fair specimen 
of the reiterated war during the entire 
day. From eleven in the morning till 
seven at night, it consisted of a succes- 
sion of such attacks, with unabated fury, 
and increasing force ; and often with a 
boldness and deadly effect, which per- 
plexed our soldiers, and put their match- 
less firmness to the utmost trial. It may 
be believed, that every fresh onset swept 
away multitudes of our infantry; still 
the survivors gave not an inch of the 
ground, but made good the lines aad 
firm the squares. No men in Europe 
could have endured as they did. Again 
and again the enemy's cannon and caval- 
ry rebounded from their " adamantine 
front," dismayed and scattered. These 
were the brmthing times of our heroes ! 
Line was with admirable alacrity formed 
for a greater breadth of fire 
squares afforded, i;x.nieJ : 



90 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

the back plates of the cuirasses, when 
masses of French infantry approached 
with a heavy fire of musketry. They 
did " go through their work," as Napo- 
leon often muttered, unlike any troops he 
had ever seen. Such were the deadly 
visits, of the cannon and cavalry, that, as 
I have repeatedly been assured by offi- 
cers with whom I have conversed, these 
interludes of infantry battle were a kind 
of refreshment, after their toil with the 
other arms ! They never took the trou- 
ble to look at the numbers; they fell 
as if boys had attacked them, merely to 
keep them in wind ; and invariably rout- 
ed them by a very few steps of a run in 
advance with pointed bayonets. The 
Duke, in visiting different points, was 
often received with a shout of impa- 
tience to be led on. The gallant 95th 
were very tired of the iron cases, and 
the iron grape shot. An immense body 
of French infantry happened to ap- 
proach that noble regiment at one time 
when Lord Wellington was paying them 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 91 

a visit, " Let us at 'em, my lord, 55 " let 
us down upon 'em," quite regardless of 
their numbers. " Not yet," replied the 
chief, " not yet, my brave men, but you 
shall have at them soon 5 firm a little lon- 
ger ; we must not be beat ; what would 
they say in England ?" The last caution 
was praise rather than encouragement; 
for, — let Stny people on earth match it, 
ancient or modern, from T hermopyle 
dow r nwards 5 through ages of Roman firm- 
ness and chivalrous enthusiasm, — in no 
part of the line did a thought of flinch- 
ing from his allotted spot, or of occupy- 
ing any other ground behind, than the 
breadth of his back where he stood, if he 
should fall, find a moment's shelter in the 
mind of the poorest British soldier of 
Waterloo. The trite and abused term of 
glory does not convey the idea of a hun- 
dredth part of the merit of such unshak- 
en constancy. " Les Anglais," says the 
intelligent author of the character* of the 
different European armies, himself a 
Frenchman, " Les Anglais sent indubi 



22 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

" tablement le peuple le plus intrepide 
" de PEurope ; celui qui affronte la mort, 
" et la voit approcher, avec le plus de 
u sang froid et d'indifferenceV 5 

From our vantage ground, we had gain- 
ed a very satisfactory general idea of the 
field, and moved down to the farm house 
of La Haye Sainte, to examine the state 
in which the conflict had left that post, 
before we made a circuit for a more 
minute inspection of the field. Much of 
the wreck of the battle lay between the 
Duke of Wellington's station, and the 
farm house, which manifested the hazard 
to which he had been exposed. The 
" Relation" admits the necessity of send- 
ing against La Haye Sainte " de nouvel- 
les forces," before it was taken, by the 
slaughter of almost all its brave defend- 
ers. It ' is just an ordinary farm house, 
and court of offices. The house forms 

# The English are undoubtedly the most intrepid 
people in Europe : The people/ who meet as well 
as wait for deathj with most of coolness and indif- 
ference. 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 93 

one side of a square, and the offices the 
other three ; the court yard collecting 
the manure in the middle, and sheltering 
the cattle. The side opposite to the 
house is a long building for cows ; the 
passage being separated from the cows' 
stalls by a parapet about four feet high. 
At each end of the passage is a large 
door or gate, both of which were literally 
riddled with musket balls, fired from 
within, and from without, as could easi- 
ly be distinguished from the kind of hole 
the ball had made. The bodies, after 
the action, were heaped up in the cow 
stalls, as high as the parapet. The 
whole farm house, yard, and offices might 
have afforded room for 1000 or 1500 men 
to act. They had made holes for mus- 
ketry all around the place ; and many 
a hole had beea made for them by the 
enemy. The whole presented a scene 
of shattered ruin, which could ,not be 
looked upon without a degree of interest 
amounting [to terror. But it stood a no- 



94 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

ble monument of the determined valour 
of our German brethren in arms. 

Some very poor children who seemed 
to starve about the ruins, soon joined us. 
and began to beg from us " quelque chose" 
with most persevering importunity. Their 
miserable appearance was in perfect 
agreement with the scene of desolation 
about them. We saw no grown people 
who seemed to have any interest in the 
premises. 

Having succeeded in opening the shat- 
tered door which led out to the fields to 
the west, we saw several women still en- 
gaged in the lately most lucrative occu- 
pation of gleaning up any thing w T hich 
they could sell to strangers. The same 
persons had very probably been active 
in stripping and plundering the slain, be- 
fore they were buried. We asked them 
where they were during the action :— 
" Toutes dans le bois*."— Did thev 
hear the noise?— the answer was a shruo: 
*nd look of dreadful recollection. They 

• " All in the wood." 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 95 

seemed to be finding very little worth 
lifting. We were ourselves at the mo- 
ment more fortunate, for, lying among 
some straw, we found a French bayonet, 
evidently marked with blood, which we 
brought away with us. 

We returned to the tree, and directed 
our steps westward to go along the Bri- 
tish line to the tight. There was no dif- 
ficulty in tracing the line by the graves 
of the brave men, who had fallen where 
they were first posted. The survivors 
never quitted it, but to advance. The 
very ground was hallowed ; and it was 
trode by us with respect and gratitude; 
the multitudes below, so lately interred, 
occasioned a very impressive subject of 
reflection. 

If the unknown dead called forth these 
feelings, much more did the affecting con- 
sciousness of standing on the spot, where 
some one known to us had " nobly 
fought, and nobly died." We stood 
where the interesting Sir William De 
Lancey had met his death, when rally- 



96 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

ing, with great spirit and effect, a battal- 
lion of Hanoverians, who had got into 
confusion. He nobly refused to occupy 
the time of the surgeons with his wound, 
which he had heard them pronounce mor- 
tal, when they thought him insensible. 
He was removed to the village of Wa- 
terloo, where he died. This gallant 
young man's early name, and just favour 
with his great commander, excited gene- 
ral and deep interest for his fate : and no 
where more than in Edinburgh, where he 
haa been married only a few weeks be- 
fore. 

Indeed the instances of heroic death 
were as numerous as they are affecting. 
Colonel Miller of the first guards request- 
ed a last sight of the colours under which 
he had fought. He kissed them fervent- 
ly, and begged they might be waved over 
him till he expired. 

The lamented Captain Curzon, Lord 
Scarsdale's son, met his fate with almost 
" military glee." In falling from his 
horse, he called out gaily to lord March, 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 97 

who was riding with him at a gallop,— 
" Good bye, dear March." And by- 
one effort more, when his friend had left 
him for the urgent duty of animating a 
foreign corps, in very critical circum- 
stances, he looked up, and cried " Well 
done, dear March." 

The nervous idea strongly occurred, 
of the next day's horrors of such a field 
as Waterloo. Numbers of the despe- 
rately wounded and dying, in the midst 
of the dead, raised their heads, when 
visitors to the scene passed them, to im- 
plore water, or to beg death at their 
hands, to end their agonies. Many of 
the wounded were not removed till the 
Wednesday, the third d$y after the bat- 
tle. 

All was now hushed in the stillness of 
a long line of graves, the sad consumma- 
tion which the wounded implored. No 
one who has not seen it, can imagine 
how touching it is to see, strewed around 
their graves, fragments of what theJbrave 
men wore or carried when they fell. 
i 



98 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

Among the straw of the trodden down 
corn, which still covered the field, lay 
caps, shoes, pieces of uniforms and 
shirts, tufts, cockades, feathers, orna- 
mental horse-hair red and black, and 
what most struck us, great quantities of 
letters, and leaves of books. The, lat- 
ter were much too far defaced by rain 
and. mud," to make it worth our while to 
lift any of them. In one letter, we could 
just make out the words, so affecting in 
the circumstances, " My dear husband." 
We brought away some leaves of a Ger* 
man hymn book ; and probably, had we 
had time, might have found something 
curious in a department in which the 
peasants seemed not at all to have anti- 
cipated us. 

We were now on the station of the 
Prince of Orange, and where he received 
his wound. The Dutch and Belgians un- 
der his immediate command behaved very 
gallantly. The Prince is said, in a mo- 
ment of chivalrous feeling, when applaud- 
ing their valour, to have torn the star from 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 99 

his breast, and thrown it into their co- 
lumn ; adding, that he did not know who 
best deserved it, and therefore he gave it 
among them. 

A very gay regiment of gentlemen light 
horse volunteers, were in the battle of 
Waterloo, all inhabitants of a continental 
city, which I shall not name. An oppor- 
tunity occurred for them to charge the 
French cavalry, and an aid-de-camp came 
to them with an order or request to that 
effect, from Lord Wellington. Their co- 
lonel in great surprise, objected the ene- 
my's strength, — their cuirasses, — and the 
consideration, which had unaccountably, 
he said, escaped the Commander in Chief, 
that his regiment were all gentlemen. 
This diverting response was carried back 
to Lord Wellington • who dispatched the 
messenger again to say, that if the gentle- 
men would take post upon an eniinenee, 
which he pointed to in the rear, they 
would have an excellent view of the bat- 
tle ; and he would leave the choice of a 
proper time to charge, entirely to their 



100 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

own sagacity and discretion, in which he 
had the fullest confidence ! The. colonel 
actually thanked the aid-de-camp, for this 
distinguished post of honour, and follow- 
ed by his gallant train with their very 
high plumes, (the present great point of 
continental military foppery,) was out of 
danger in a moinent. 

A regiment of light dragoons of a very 
different stamp, the 12th, was posted near 
the Prince of Orange. Their charges 
were of the most spirited kind ; and no- 
thing but the cuirasses enabled the 
French dragoons to resist them. In the 
account of so much pure valour without 
trick or cover, against so much iron, it is 
not difficult to decide where honour would 
award the balance. Many brave men 
were sacrificed to the iron cases, and taf- 
feta flags which frightened their horses. 
A gallant young friend of my own, lay 
near the spot w^e had now reached. He 
had just joined the 12th dragoons, and 
in the first charge of his regiment, in 
which he bore a very distinguished part, 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 101 

received a wound, which was instantly- 
fatal. There was a melancholy satisfac- 
tion in beholding the spot of his honour- 
able grave : A prouder sepulchre the 
turf on which the soldier falls, than the 
proudest mausoleum in consecrated 
ground. 

No part of the field was more fertile in 
impressive associations, than the ground 
of the 30th, and, I believe, the 73d regi- 
ments, brigaded under our gallant coun- 
tryman, severely wounded in the battle, 
Sir Colin HalkeL I had already heard 
much of the firmness of these brave 
troops ; and was to hear still more. To 
no square did the artillery, and particu- 
larly the cuirassiers, pay more frequent 
and tremendous visits ; and never were 
they shaken for a moment. Their almost 
intimacy with these death-bringing visit- 
ants, increased so much as the day ad- 
vanced, that they began to recognise their 
faces. Their boldness much provoked 
the soldiers. They galloped up to the 
bayonet points, where of course their 
i 2 



102 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

horses made a full stop, to the great dan- 
ger of pitching their riders into the square. 
They then rode round and round the fear- 
less bulwark of bayonets \ and in all the 
confidence of panoply, often coolly walk- 
ed their horses, to have more time to 
search for some chasm in the ranks, 
where they might ride in. Tire balls ab- 
solutely rung upon their" mail - y and no- 
thing . incommoded the rider, except 
bringing down his horse, which at last 
became the general order. In that event, 
he generally surrendered himself, and was 
received within the square, till he could 
be sent prisoner to the rear ;— a genero- 
sity ill-merited, when it is considered that 
the French spared very fe< lives, which 
it was in their power to take. Many of- 
ficers were murdered, after giving up 
their arms ; and when prisoners were col- 
lected, cavalry w£rc sent to cut them 
down, when circumstances at the moment" 
prevented their removal* ! 

In the revolutionary demoralization, 

* A young: officer of the Greys well known to the 
author, was shot by a French officer whose Yife he 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 103 

produced by an education of violence and 
selfishness, nothing is more frightful than 
the want of feeling which characterises 
the French soldiery. Their prisoners 
could hardly expect to be spared by the 
men who, lying wounded themselves, in 
the hospitals at Antwerp, were often 
seen mimicking the contortions of coun- 
tenance which were produced by the 
agonies of death, in one of their own 
comrades in the next bed. There is no 
curse to be compared to the power of 
fiends like these. Europe entire, was 
forced to put them down ; and they made 
a gigantic effort at Waterloo to rise again. 
It makes one nervous to think that they 
were within a hair's breadth of succeed- 
ing ; and often I experienced a move- 
ment, in which it was hard to say, whether 
there was most of indignation or ridicule, 
when I heard Frenchmen and French- 
women lamenting in pathetic and senti- 

had preserved. The object of the Frenchman was to 
make his escape. He did not effect his purpose ; 
being overtaken and cut to pieces by the enraged 
soldiers. 



104 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

mental terms, their failure ; with scraps 
about " Vertu malhenreuse, mais tou- 
jours respectabh*." 

The cuirassiers were repeatedly driven 
off by the 30th ; and the comrade regi- 
ment reduced themselves by painful de- 
grees, more and more every attack. 
Line was always again formed with un- 
wearied alacrity ; no complaint escaped 
the patient soldiers' lips, if we except an 
occasional cry to be led on. The storm 
was seen again gathering and rolling on. 
The serious command, " re-form square, 
prepare to receive cavalry," was prompt- 
ly and accurately obeyed. The whole 
were prostrate on their breasts, to let the 
iron shower of artillery fly over, and erect 
in an instant, when the artillery ceased 
and the cavalry charged.— Their country 
do not know one tenth of the merit of 
" The men of Waterloo." 

Unable to break in upon the square by 
open force, a commanding officer of 

# " Virtue unfortunate, but always respectable." 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 105 

cuirassiers tried a ruse de-guerre ; he 
lowered his sword to General Halket; 
several of the officers called out, " Sir, 
they surrender."'— " Be firm and fire," 
was the promptly obeyed answer. The 
. General justly suspected an offer of sur- 
render to a body of infantry, fixed to the 
spot in a defensive position, by a body of 
cavalry, who had the option of galloping 
off, with all the plain open behind them. 
The volley sent the colonel and his cuiras- 
siers, as usual, about, with a laugh of de- 
rision from the men he had meant to cut 
in pieces ; and many a ring from their 
balls, upon the back pieces of the mails. 
This gallant brigade was honoured with 
several visits from the illustrious chief. 
In one he inquired u how they were ?" 
The answer was, that two thirds of their 
numbers were down, and that the rest 
were so exhausted, that leave to retire, 
eveft for a short time, was most desirable ; 
that some of the foreign corps, who had 
not suffered, might take their place. Ge- 
neral H. was told that the issue depended 



106 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

on the steady unflinching front of the Bri-* 
tish troops ; and that even a change of 
place was hazardous in the extreme. He 
impressively said, " Enough, my lord, we 
stand here till the last man falls." 

One anecdote more of this glorious bri- 
gade I cannot withhold. I have no apo- 
logy to make for the length of my narra- 
tive ; I feel that every one who reads of 
Waterloo, will agree with me in opinion, 
that it is impossible to dwell too long up- 
on the engrossing theme. A gleam of the 
gentler affections is hailed with tenfold 
sympathy, when for a moment it gilds an 
interval of the empire of the sterner vir- 
tues in the warrior's bosom. It is like the 
breathing of the softest flute after the 
clang of a thousand trumpets ; or the 
downy contact of the halcyon's breast 
which stills the stormy sea*. In the 
midst of their dangers, this band of heroes 
had their attention called to a very aflfect- 

* Burke, in his bold figurative language, compared 
the kinder affections to " the soft green of. the sou], 
on which the eye loves t# repose." 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 107 

ing scene of private friendship. Two of 
the officers were the more closely attached 
to each other, that they were not on terms 
of perfect good understanding with the 
rest of the mess ; owing to their having 
opposed some arrangements which the 
rest thought expedient, but which it was 
expected would be attended with some 
expense ; and at the same time concealed, 
most honourably, the real grounds of their 
opposition to the general voice ; that be- 
sides their own families, they had each 
two sisters to support ; a consideration 
which assuredly they could not have 
pleaded in vain. The similarity of their 
circumstances most naturally cemented 
their friendship ; which was quite a by- 
word in the regiment. After doing their 
duty calmly through nearly the whole of 
the murderous day, they found themselves 
both unhurt at a late hour in the evening ; 
when one of them playfully called to the 
other, who stood at a little distance, " I 
always told you they never would hit me. 
Th** y never did it in Spain 5 and they 



J08 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

have not done it to-day." He had hardly 
spoke, when he was shot dead on the spot. 
His friend stood for a few moments mo- 
tionless ; then burst into tears 5 flew to 
the body, threw himself down beside it, 
and sobbed over it, inarticulately repeat- 
ing several times, " My only friend." 
The officer who related the affecting sto- 
ry, told me, that so completely did the 
scene overcome every one who witnessed 
it, that there w&s not a dry eye among 
them. , 

There were not wanting some striking 
instances of individual heroism at Wa- 
terloo. 

General Halket had a brother in the 
field, who was colonel of a Hanoverian 
corps, or a regiment of the German legion. 
A trait of spirit is related of him which 
has few examples in modern warfare ; 
and is not exceeded by the far-famed 
achievement of Robert Bruce in his short 
combat with Sir Henry Bohun, in that 
memorable battle, which stoo^I foremost 
on history's brightest page, till Waterloo 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 109 

was fought. A French general was giv- 
ing his orders with great confidence to a 
large body of French troops ; and had 
come to their front unattended. Colonel 
Halket made a dash at him, having seized 
a favourable opportunity, at full gallop ; 
and, putting a pistol to his breast, seized 
his horse's reins, and brought him off from 
the very beards of his wonder-struck sol- 
diers ! I had the good fortune to spend 
an evening at the Ha'gue with the mother 
and sister of these gallant men ; from 
whom, it is needless to observe, 1 heard 
not one word of their deeds ; which were 
quite new to me when I arrived at Brus- 
sels. 

i had seen, as formerly mentioned, a 
young officer at Antwerp, who had receiv- 
ed twenty-four sabre wounds. The 69th, 
his regiment, with another, was the square 
next on the right of General Halket's. In 
one of their formations the French cavalry 
was unfortunately too. soon up for them 3 
penetrated into the midst of them, and al- 
most cut them to pieces. 

K 



110 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

We saw the point where a Belgic corps 
was stationed on the right, where the 
French called out, " Brave Belgians, come 
over and join your old comrades." . It is 
well known they did not comply with the 
invitation. 

We next in our interesting round, arri- 
ved at the memorable post of Hougomont, 
for ever associated with the name of the 
British foot guards. To them exclusive- 
ly belongs the glory of having foiled the 
persevering and desperate attacks of at 
least 30,000 of the enemy ; and they were 
just the first, second, and third regiment 
of guards Here again national feelings 
were not to be resisted, Lord Saltoun, 
Colonels Home and M'Donnell being of 
the " North Countrie," a nation (says the 
sweetest of their bards,) 

u Patient of toil ; serene amidst alarms ; 
" Inflexible in faith ; invincible in arms." 

We were surprised to find Hougomont, 
(or more correctly Gomont, a mistake, it 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. Ill 

is believed, of Lord Wellington's, des- 
tined now to perpetuity ; and very natur- 
ally arising from hearing rapidly pro- 
nounced, Le Chateau de Gomont,) a 
country seat with gardens neatly laid out 
in the Dutch taste, and extensive offices . 
A small wood was on the outside close to 
the high garden wall, which is of brick* 
perforated in two tiers for musketry ; and 
shattered with the enemy's cannon balls. 
The light companies of the three regiments 
were in this wood, and were of course dri- 
ven into the house. 

The French officer's " Relation" ad- 
mits that the place was not taken ; that 
his countrymen suffered dreadfully in 
their unavailing attempts upon it, and at 
last endeavoured to shell it on fire. This 
they only partially effected ; but they did 
leave the place a scorched and shattered 
inheritance, first to its brave defenders, 
and ultimately to its proprietor. 

We could not resist picking yp some 
small fragments even of the bricks and 
slates of this sacred spot ; and we found 



112 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

some pieces of the bombs by which the 
chief havoc was occasioned. For some 
time after the battle, the accumulation 
of dead in and around this post presented 
perhaps the most shocking spectacle in 
the whole field. When in the garden, 
where fruit-trees and shrubberies seemed 
as if they w r ere blighted, and the neat al- 
leys of holly and yew have been much 
torn and deranged, we saw the poor gar- 
dener, who had remained in his garden 
all the time of the furious storm ; because, 
as he candidly owned, after the battle 
was begun, he could not venture out of it. 
He confirmed the fact that the enemy ne- 
ver were within the premises ; house^ of- 
fices, or garden. 

It is said that two ladies, deeply inte- 
rested for some relative, sat in a carriage 
the greatest part of the action, on the 
great road ; certainly repeatedly under 
fire. And an old woman remained in her 
cottage almost in the midst of the fight, 
as she said, to save her cows and pigs ! 
We did not see this heroine. 



VISIT TO THE FIELD, 113 

The natural idea of the indemnification 
of the owner of Hougomont occurred to 
us when we surveyed his roofless walls 
and desolate domain. One of the farmers 
of the field, the progress of which to har- 
vest had been so tremendously interrupt- 
ed, asked us whether the British govern- 
ment was to pay him for his corn which 
had been tro f dden down ? We toldhim that 
the said government has sometimes paid 
much less reasonable costs ; and that he- 
should at least make the trial by putting 
in his claim. 

The wood on the outside had been 
chaoked up with the French dead ; and 
more wreck lay here than on any other 
part of the plain. 

We crossed diagonally to the hovel of 
Belle Alliance, a name of superstitious 
coincidence ; on which it is the custom of 
the French more than ours to lay much 
stress. Certainly they never had three 
such names as Fuentes d'Honoro, Vitlo- 
ria, and Belle Alliance to boast of! The 
house is of the poorest description ; con- 
k2 



114 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

sisting of two rooms, with two smaller 
back rooms ; a passage, and some misera- 
ble holes up stairs. There are also some 
ruinous out-houses, and a well into which 
several dead bodies were thrown. On 
the gable of the house, the owner has 
painted in very large and rude letters in 
black on a white-wash ground, " Hotel 
de la Belle Alliance /" 

Our officer assured us, that Wellington 
and Blucher did not meet in this house, 
as generally believed ; but some hundred 
yards further on in the pursuit. He had 
himself seen the meeting and the parting 
of these two great men, on that never to 
be forgotten occasion. It is possible the 
Duke may have entered the house ; and 
the people show a straw bottomed chair 
on which they say he sat down, but at 
any rate it was the head quarters of Bona- 
parte during the battle. The latter had 
supped in one house, and slept in another, 
not far from Belle Alliance. The first of 
these houses had been unroofed and nearly 
destroyed; for no very assignable reason. 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 115 

We entered the house, hovel as it was, 
with great respect; got some refreshment, 
and drank a bumper on the spot to the 
alliance. A party of Brussels inhabi- 
tants, whom we had often met on the field, 
were sharing the same bread and cheese, 
and vin du pays. There was no resisting 
a toast for them, " Vive le brave Prince 
d'Orange, et les Beiges qui se battirent 
a ses cotes sar ce champ meme*. v 

Their return was, " Vive le puissant 
Wellington et ses braves Anglais, n&s 
meilleurs amisU" 

We were so much in the spirit of the 
moment and place, as to read while we 
rested, both Lord Wellington and Bona- 
parte'3 account of the battle ; which we 
had with us ; and in the same paper there 
happened to be the account of the pro- 
ceedings of the Edinburgh meeting for the 
Waterloo subscription. The speeches of 



* " Long live the brave Priace of Orange, and the 
Belgians who fought by his side on this very field." 

t "Long live the powerful Wellington and his 
brave English, o«r best friends." 



116 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

several well known characters, and among 
the rest of Mr. Walter Scott, we read 
aloud ; and certainly they could not have 
been read on a piore impressive spot. 
One extravagance further, and no more, 
we committed within the memorable walls 
of Belle Alliance. The passage was 
white-washed, and many names were 
written upon it ; we quoted the following 
lines from the Vision of Don Roderick, 
on the very spot of Napoleon's final de- 
feat and ruin, on his first trial of strength 
with " the Wellington," The poet apos- 
trophises Massena after the battle of Fu- 
entes d'Honoro, 

u Tell him thy conqueror was Wellington ; 
li And if he chafe be his own fortune tried, 
" God, and our cause, to aid, the venture we'll abide.*' 

» 

As we were so far advanced, we wished 
before visiting Bonaparte's station and re- 
turning to the position of the left wing, to 
have one glance of the country over which 
the panic-struck enemy had fled. Nothing 
meets the eye but extensive unenclosed 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 117 

corn-fields, with very little wood; as if 
Soigne had rendered all further plantation 
in its region unnecessary. There could 
not have been a clearer field for flight ; 
and well the advantage was appreciated 
by every individual French soldier. It 
was in this quarter the Prussian stragglers 
were most dangerous for several days 
after the battle. 

The officer who was with us belonged 
to the 23d. His regiment passed close 
to Belle Alliance on the opposite side of 
the road ; by which means he was witness 
to what Lord Wellington even said to 
Blucher* He saw them meet on the road, 
and walk their horses for some hundred 
yards in earnest conversation ; when Lord 
Wellington wished the veteran gocd night 
and success in the pursuit ; and turned his 
horse back again to Waterloo to write his 
important dispatches. 

For a great breadth along the road, 
our officer pointed out to us the station of 
the reserve of the cavalry of the old guard, 
with which a desperate final effort was 



118 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

made to retrieve the battle. The marks 
of the horses feet in the deep ground, 
hardened again when we saw it, gave an 
amazing idea of the immensity of the force 
which had stood there* The reserve of 
the young guard was posted in a hollow 
between Belle Alliance and Mon Plaisir. 
To the right of th« 23d, advanced in the 
pursuit the 52d and 71st regiments. It 
fell to them to meet the young guard. 
Numbers were more than ever out of the 
question, panic had spread through the 
vast host of the enemy. The two regi-* 
ments, weakened as they had been, rushed 
upon the guards, and routed them in an 
instant ; the same guard with whose spirit 
and equipment Napoleon had so lately 
before made all Europe to resound. A 
most admirable manoeuvre was here per- 
formed by the two victorious regiments. 
They separated, and running on two sides 
of an oval, for a considerable way, met 
again ; and thus cut off several thousand 
prisoners. 

Returning by Belle Alliance, we ad- 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 119 

vanced about 150 yards to the rising 
ground, on the left hand side of the road 
looking to the British army from which 
Napoleon viewed the field; and a very 
complete view he had of it. He had no 
scaffold erected where he stood, and cer- 
tainly never went after the battle had 
commenced, to the telegraph in the rear, 
which was at the distance of at least a 
mile. The " Relation" says, that he was 
generally dismounted, walking backwards 
and forwards in his usual attitude, with 
his hands behind his back, and looking 
steadfastly at the conflict. Lacoste the 
farmer, or rather proprietor of La Belle 
Alliance, it is well known, was pinioned, 
set on horseback, and placed beside the 
Emperor ; very often exposed to fire, and 
laughed at for manifesting very natural 
alarm, carried off for some miles in the 
flight, when the Emperor used the freedom 
to forget him ; and ultimately dismissed 
with the high reward for all he had under- 
gone, of one Napoleon d'or, about 20s. 
Sterling. We had the good fortune to see 



120 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

this man. By the concurring testimony 
of friends as well as enemies, the great 
Napoleon forfeited his name on the spot 
of ground where we now stood. With 
all his pretensions to consummate skill, 
he had but one tadique, and that was 
furious onset with overpowering masses 
of force ; a system which had in no pre- 
vious battle, Leipsic excepted, ever failed 
him. He was well aware of the numeri- 
cal inferiority of the British army, and 
making every allowance for their deter- 
mined valour, well known, but yet untried 
by him, he concluded confidently, that as 
they must remain on the defensive, a suf- 
ficient quantity of grape shot, would, in 
a certain number of hours, entirely cut 
them down. \ 

His ignorant surprise has already been 
mentioned, and pretended joy to see the 
English face about at all ; his exclamation 
" Ah ! 1 have them yet," evidently showed 
that he had never fought them before. 
Lacoste describes his agitation as ex- 
treme, and his consumption of snuff inor- 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. Ul 

dinate, when the three mighty armies 
which he had rolled on to Hougomont, 
La Haye Sainte, and the British left, fail- 
ed to produce the result of French onset 
to which he had been accustomed. Two 
were defied and visited with frightful car- 
nage ; and one was recoiling in confusion $ 
and they comprised more than half his 
vast army. He became cross and short 
in his answers ; and furious in his com- 
mands. He had however no want of 
troops. For six hours more, w r ith his 
usual profligate disregard of human life, 
he varied not the mode of attack, but 
poured his devoted enthusiasts on, though 
again and again driven back with immense 
slaughter. La Haye Sainte was taken, 
half a mile in his front along the road. It 
was of no use but to enclose the captors 
for the well directed range of the British 
howitzers. A message came from the 
general, for orders about that useless 
post ; which could not be kept because of 
a battery which commanded it; what 
would it please his Majesty to order the 



i&t VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

general to do ? u S'en emparer*," wa§ 
the laconic answer, and the Emperor 
turned his back on the aide-de-camp. 

He could not restrain occasional com- 
pliments to the Britsh troops. — " How 
they form ! — how they move ! — how they 
do their work ! — what beautiful troops !" 

About this time, nearly four o'clock 
in the afternoon, a British officer was 
brought into his presence a prisoner. 
He was severely wounded, but as it is 
an important rule in battle to transmit 
prisoners of rank to head quarters, he 
was detained till several questions were 
put to him by the Emperor, and, as I was 
informed, with great politeness. 

1st. "Is lord Wellington himself in 
the field l»~An8. " He is." 

2d. " What is the state of the spirits 
of the English troops ?" — Arts. " As de- 
termined as ever." 

3d. " Where are the Prussians ?"~Ans* 
" It is believed they are at hand." 
Bonaparte was observed to look thought- 
* « Carry it." 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 123 

fuL He however politely dismissed the 
officer, to have his wounds taken care 
of. 

The British keeping their defensive 
position, the entire French army, as the 
assailants, naturally found themselves 
very considerably advanced on the plain • 
an advance which Bonaparte falsely call- 
ed occupying the British line. This 
very advance was their ruin. The Bri- 
tish artillery now played from their high- 
er ground upon the whole French army, 
with the exception of the reserve of 
guard old and young ; and every oppor- 
tunity of attack was seized by the Bri- 
tish, both infantry and cavalry. " The 
combat deepened, 55 and fresh spirits 
rushed " to glory or the grave. 55 It was 
now the tug of battle : — The impetuosity, 
the high spirit, the " stern joy, 55 of first 
onset was gone by ; now was come the 
murderous strain of the mighty armies, 
the poise and balance of the day. 

" The affair is kept up, 55 (se soutient) 
says the " Relation;" — " not a foot on 



124 VISIT TO THE FlELD. 

" either side is yielded ; new columris 
" advance ; charges are renewed ; three 
" times the position is on the point of be- 
" ing forced ; and three times, after pro- 
" digies of valour , the French are stop- 
" ped short." 

Nothing can be more descriptive than 
what follows of the re-action, the languor, 
which succeed over-excitement ; the de- 
pression of baulked enthusiasm. 

" Hesitation appeared in the French 
" army, and marked uneasiness (de vives 
a inquietudes.) Some dismounted bat- 
" teries retired, multitudes of wounded 
" separate from the columns, and spread 
" alarm for the issue of battle. Pro- 
" found silence had succeeded to the ac- 
" clamations and cries of joy of the sol- 
" diers, sure of being led to victory. At 
" the moment all the troops, with the 
" exception of the infantry of the guard, 
" were engaged and exposed to a fire 
" the most murderous. The action con- 
" tjnued with the same violence, but led 
"to no result. 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 125 

" It was near seven o^clocfC. Bona- 
" parte, who till that moment had remain- 
" ed on the ridge which he had chosen, 
" and from which he saw well all that 
" passed, contemplated with a look of 
" ferocity, the hideous prospect of so 
" frightful a butchery. The more *the 
" obstacles multiplied, the more he be- 
'' came obstinate. He was indignant at 
" the unforeseen difficulties ; and, far 
" from having fears to devote an army, 
" whose confidence in him had no bounds, 
" he persevered in sending on fresh 
" troops, with orders to march forward, 
" to charge with the bayonet, to sweep 
" away. Several times he was told from 
'< different points, that the affair was 
" against him, that the troops appeared 
" to be shaken; ' en avnnt? repondit-il, 
• 4 ' en avantf— forward, forward." 

Another British officer was brought 
prisoner at this rare juncture ; and wit- 
nessed the unexpected demeanour of this 
hitherto idolized man, in the presence of 
a,n enemy so new to him. He raved and 
x2 



ISO, VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

stormed, and, regardless of witnesses, 
threw away in a moment the character 
founded on fifteen years of miracles. 
A British officer witnessed this suicide 
of Napoleon's fame. It was, it may be 
believed, delightful to this officer, to hear 
the answer given to Bonaparte's gene- 
ral wholesale commands, to destroy and 
break and sweep away the English. 
" Sire, il est impossible." Yet at the 
very moment he was sending off estaf- 
fettes with despatches ; and, true to the 
last gasp of his political existence, to 
that lying policy which has itself roused 
the vengeance of united Europe, he re- 
peated several times, " avec distraction, 
QuHl tfoublie pas de dire part out que 
la victoire est amoi^." Several officers 
near him expressed their wonder, by say-^ 
ing, " II a perdu la fgfet." 

How different this melancholy scene 
of the fury of disappointed oppression, 
from the calm he pretended at Jena ! 

* " With; distraction, Let him not forget to say 
every where, that the victory is mine.** 
i " He has lost his kead." 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 127 

when he played the unruffled god, far 
above the passions of the war below, 
and its vulgar risks ; on a safe eminence, 
waving his baton, and columns of the 
enemy disappeared ! It is indeed time 
that this mummery, this serenity of tri- 
umphant profligacy, should be exposed 
in all its hollow worthlessness and naked 
deformity. 

The Prussians appeared. From the 
ground on which we stood, the wood 
seemed about three miles off, from which 
they began to debouche about seven 
o'clock in the evening. Lacoste wit- 
nessed the information, repeatedly brought 
to Bonaparte, and heard his persevering 
assertion, that it was the corps of Mar- 
shal Grouchy. This, however, was not 
his real belief; for, instead of waiting 1 
for it, he immediately resolved to throw 
his last stake before the possible Prus- 
sians might arrive. The old and middle 
guard were now ordered forward, as the 
last column of attack. It was led by 
Ney> as he himself narrates, in mournful 



123 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

silence, to make a last desperate effort 
on the British centre and left : he well 
knowing all the time that the battle was 
already lost, and could not be retrieved 
by a mere reserve, if the whole army 
had failed to make any impression on the 
British position. 

The Picton warriors, with the gallant 
Kempt at their head, for Picton was no 
more, were to meet and confound thi$ 
last effort of rage and despair*. 

We left the station of Bonaparte, and 
in imagination, as we proceeded, attend- 
ed the sullen march of this column to the 
point of its destined defeat. The whole 
French army had been premonished of 
the movement of the old guard ; and 
new and desperate efforts were called 
for. All eyes were fixed on the old 
guard, which had never before failed. 
New efforts were made, in a surprising 

* A correction of the mistake in the first edition, 
that Sir T. Picton fell in the last attack, was here 
indispensable. I am enabled to make it from u*i* 
questionable authority. 



V'iSIT TO THE FIELD. 139 

degree, by this inflammable volatile sol- 
diery. The flame of honour burned, 
however, much more steadily in the Bri- 
tish army. Great efforts in their enemies^ 
as usual, produced still greater in them, 
and not an inch of ground was gained 
by the assailants. The track over which 
the guard moved, and over which they 
fled, was still, when we passed it, cover- 
ed by their spoil, and marked by horses 7 
feet, cannon wheels, and the deeper fur- 
rows of balls and bombs. Ponsonby 
fell here. 

As usual, the artillery of the guard 
poured its iron shower, and the cavalry 
followed with its desperate charge. It 
is in vain for Bonaparte to say, that his 
old guard were not beaten, or that the 
cry to which he attributes his defeat, 
" the old guard are driven back, 55 was 
not true. The bold movement of Picton, 
w r ith his favourite Highlanders, was tried 
by his brave successor; and the boasted 
cavalry of the old imperial guard were 
charged and routed by the Scottish bay- 



130 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

onet! We stood with exquisite national 
feelings here. From this point, as Lord 
Wellington's despatch states, commenced 
that final and fatal recoil, which deter- 
mined him to give the order for a general 
attack by the whole army. The infantry 
of Kempt's division rushed down the 
slope, in pursuit of their advantage. An 
immense mass of the grenadiers of the 
guard stood yet unbroken in their front. 
The Greys once more appeared ; and, im- 
patient to support their countrymen, leapt 
their horses, almost one by one, through 
the hedge, hardly waited to form, but gal- 
loped down into the middle of the High- 
landers, cheering " Scotland for ever !" 
The watch- word excited a phrenzy of ar- 
dour, and the old guard fled before them. 
Ney, by his own account, dismounted, 
escaped on foot, from what he calls this 
terrible battle ; a worse fate than that of 
the noble Picton, whose " life-blood stain- 
ed a spotless shield" when he fell ; and 

" With his back to the ground, and his feet to the foe, 
" Leaving in battle no blot on his name, 
" LookM proudly to heaven, from the death-bed of 
fame." 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 131 

A thousand French dead, alone, lay on 
this spot ; and even yet it exhibited hol- 
sters, (one we observed which had been 
filled with blood,) standard holders, pieces 
of bridles, straps, girths, &c. all denoting 
& tremendous conflict of cavalry ; and the 
ground seemed quite cut to pieces with 
marks of the struggling exertions of 
horses' feet. The well-known caps of 
the grenadiers of the French guard, lay 
yet in considerable numbers, with rags of 
their uniforms. Some more affecting re- 
mains were also there, pieces of tartaa 
and of black ostrich feathers, the plaids 
and plumes of Scotland*. 

* In addition to Marshal Blucher's testimony in 
his despatch, that the old guard " were baffled by 
the intrepidity of the Scottish regiments," it was most 
flattering to hear the truth of this almost miraculous 
conduct of our countrymen, confirmed by the prevail- 
ing belief both in Paris and on the road to it, in con- 
sequence of what was told by the French soldiers 
themselves, that it was the Scotch troops who 'chiefly 
Occasioned the loss of the battle, by defeating the old 
guard. The impression they have made in Paris it- 
self, fully justifies their belief on the subject. Tartan 



132 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

A loud cheer, we were informed by our 
officer, now ran along the whole British 
line. He was much struck by observing 
the sun shine out at that moment, after 
having been some hours under cloud ! In 
an instant the whole was on the forward 
move. The British foot guards had de- 
stroyed a column of the old guard, in their 
own front, near Hougomont. The enemy 
were already in irretrievable rout. The 
feeble attempt, made in despair, by Bona- 
parte with the young guard, is not worth 
mentioning : the " Relation" says, they 
turned with the torrent. 

The anxieties of the British chief were 
now over. They had been almost too 
much to be borne. Often, it is said, he 
had prayed in agdny, for the Prussians or 
the nifht ! When their guns commenced, 
it is described by officers who heard it, 
as something like a yell of rapture, with 

is a prevailing fashion with the ladies ; and the full 
garb is employed as an attraction by wax-work ex- 
hibitors. I saw it repeatedly introduced on the stage 
with great applause. 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 133 

which he called out, " There goes old 
Blucher at last," and unable to bear up 
longer, burst into tears. 15000 of his 
friends lay on the ground about him ; and 
before him was the spectacle of his power- 
ful enemy, who were within a hair's 
breadth of destroying him, in full rout and 
ruin ; and the world delivered ! The mo- 
ment was too overpowering, the feeling 
was too big for any heart to contain. In 
an instant the great Napoleon and France, 
were levelled in the dust. Marengo, Aus- 
terlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagram, " fell 
like stars from the firmament cast," " the 
star of Peace" arose. Its enemies were 
a mass of panic and impotency. " The 
meteor flag of England" was burning ter- 
rific, and had consigned to insulted injured 
Prussia, a ripened harvest of revenge. 

The mind has scarcely buoyancy suffi- 
cient to allot to England a pinnacle of 
glory high enough for this crisis. The 
account is too complex, as well as too 
vast, to allow at one grasp a view of all 
its elements. One feature is in prominent 

M 



134 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

and brilliant light, the Steadiness of Eng- 
land for five and twenty years \ concen- 
trated into a focus at Waterloo, to which 
eternal justice denied not the victory. 

What would Cowper have said, when 
he did such justice to the constancy of his 
i country when bearing up against the jea- 
lousy and hostility of the world ; instead 
of engrossing, as she now does, their gra- 
titude and admiration. 

Si O England, thou art a devoted deer, 
Cf Beset by every ill but that of fear. 
u The nations hunt, all mark thee for a prey, 
61 They swarm around thee, but thQU stand'st at bay 
" Undaunted still, tho' wearied and perplexed, 
c *Qnce Chatham saved thee, Who shall save thee 
next!" 

A noble proof occurred in the evening 
of the battle, of the generous candour of 
the brave Prussians themselves, on the 
question of British ascendancy. A regi- 
ment of light dragoons, overtook a corps 
of Prussian cavalry in the pursuit. The 
latter instantly formed line to give the 
British the lead ; and, as they passed to 



VISIT VO THE EIELD. 1^ 

take the compliment, the Prussian trum- 
pets sounded God save the King, with 
loud huzzas ! There are some junctures in 
human affairs, which are almost too much 
for the feelings. 

, We saw the extreme left ; the well de- 
fended post of the brave men, who had 
tt vhetted their swords on Brunswick's 
tomb." Their conduct in the battle was 
not surpassed even by that of the British, 
They had lost their gallant Prince two 
days before, and mourning, which their 
un:form is, still worn for the aged Duke, 
who died of his wounds and a broken 
heart after the day of Jena, well became 
the double vengeance which was claimed 
from them at Waterloo ; and honourably 
they paid the debt*. 

There is no better witness to the entire 
rout of the French army than the author of 
*Hhe Relation." u The army now quit 
" spontaneously and at the same instant 

* A detachment from & eorps of these brave men, 
in the right wing, shared the glory of Hougomont with 
the guards. 



126 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

" its ground, and scatter like a torrent 5 
" the cannoneers abandon their guns, the 
" soldiers of the train cut the traces of 
" their horses, the infantry* the cavalry, 
" all the arms are mingled and confound- 
" ed, presenting now only an unformed 
" mass, which nothing could 'arrest, and 
" which was intent on saving itself by the 
" road and across the fields. A vast num- 
" ber of carriages in park along the sides 
a of the road, followed the movement with 
" precipitation, crowded to the road, and 
" encumbered it to such & degree, that 
" not a wheel could move. 

" No point of direction had been given, 
" and no word of command could now be 
" heard. The generals, and other chiefs, 
" lost in the crowd, and carried along with 
" it, were separated from their troops. 
" There was no longer a single battalion 
" to rally upon ; and since nothing had 
u been provided to insure a reasonable 
" retreat, how was it possible to resist a 
" derout so complete, of which no idea 
" could have been formed, and which was- 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 13* 

li t&l then unheard of in the French army* 
u already visited by so many disasters ? 

c The guard, that immoveable phalanx, 
V tthieh in the greatest catastrophes had 
" been the rallying point of the army, and 
" its rampart ; the guard, in fine, the ter- 
" ro? of the enemy, was overthrown (ter~ 
4i rassee : ) and fled dispersed with the mul- 
" tiUide ! Every one saved himself as he 
u best could, (an hazard) &c." 

The Frenchman's account of the spirit 
of the pursuit is equally picturesque. 

But where was Napoleon ? Reports 
were various in the Hying army about 
him: that he had fallen-— that he was ta- 
ken. He was neither the one nor the 
other. Lacostc first gives evidence on 
the subject, and it is impossible to ima- 
gine more damning testimony against the 
Emperor. His remark repeatedly was, 
w we must save ourselves." " How ter- 
rible these gray horses are." " We must 
save ourselves." The man that had 
squandered the lives of millions, and 
wrung tears from every eye on the Conti- 
nent of Europe } " whomever had pity on 



138 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

aoy'one," lt nor looked on what he trode.'* 
Frederick of Prussia retrieved a battle 
in circumstances fully as desperate. In- 
stead of " we must save ourselves ;" he 
galloped to a small but firm body of his 
guards, the only remnant of the field, and 
calmly asked them, " My friends, vhen 
do you mean to die ? — " Now !" was the 
electric answer. — " Then follow me*!" 

Napoleon availed himself of the dark- 
ness and the crowd, and sneaked avray. 
It was bad taste in the recent conqueror 
of the world. It would have been quite 
suitable in a pickpocket; but it woiully 
misbecame an Emperor. The Greys 
should have been Napoleon's last re- 
source ; a death like Argentine's, if not a 
cast like Frederick's. He was soon re- 
cognised in the crowd, according to the 
V Relation," and sadly disquieted toheai 
•■ VEnrpercur." He was known by his 
grey capote, or great-coat, and his dap- 

* I was told tills singular anecdote l>v a Prussian 
officer in Palis* 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 133 

pled horse, (cheval pommeU.) This did 
not suit his projet of saving himself, and 
he went from one crowd to another, re- 
peatedly recognised, to his great incon- 
venience. The question of his poor dis- 
position to cling to life, however degraded, 
is certainly now at rest. The man who, 
when the lives of others were concerned, 
could only cry, " en avant, en avantj 9 
when his own came to be the question, 
;; we must save ourselves V 1 Napoleon 
himself then, is the only person in his ar- 
my convicted of having " cried same qui 
pent" a charge he brings against the ar- 
my which he sacrificed ; but which is in- 
dignantly repelled by Marshal Ney, in his 
justification. The degraded Emperor 
was received into Philipville, after having 
been subjected to the most mortifying ve- 
rification at the gate. The report having 
spread that he was in the town, a number 
of his even yet attached soldiers, collected 
on the outside of the walls, to shed their 
blood for him. This was most inexpedi- 
ent, for it involved the possible shedding 



140 VISIT TO THE FIELD. 

of his own. It was urgent to get quit of 
these troublesome devotees, whose at- 
troupement would assuredly bring the 
enemy. The great Napoleon managed 
that, by ordering a cry to be raised, of 
which he had seen the effect in Russia, 
" Voila les Cosaques ! vite, vite, voild les 
Cosaques /" This interesting manoeuvre 
was completely successful. The Empe- 
' ror got safe out of the town ; but was most 
unlucky in being again recognised as he 
passed Rocroi, with that to him most of- 
fensive cry of " vive VEmpereur ; v not- 
withstanding of which, he arrived safe and 
sound, (plein de vie et de sante,) among 
the inhabitants of his good city of Paris. 
" O honte elernelle ! (says the author of 
the Relation,) comment peindre Vindig- 
nation dont Us durent etre penetres* /" 

It is high time that mankind should 
have done with conquerors, and conquer- 
ors like Bonaparte. 

* " O eternal disgrace ! how is it possible to de- 
pict the indignation they must have felt." 



VISIT TO THETlELiX 111 

He is reported to have said in his af- 
fected oracular manner, on landing from 
Elba at Frejus, " Voila le congres dis- 
sous.V' And now that we have seen the 
annihilation of the last remains of the 
hordes which have so long sustained him 
and his system ; and the reins drop for 
ever from his hands, palsied by the judg- 
ment of Heaven ; we may say with Me- 
gret, when he heard of the death of Charles 
XII. by a cannon ball at Frederickstadt, 
" Voild la piece jiniel*" 

I found myself on the field, nearly half 
an hour after the rest of our party, with 
imagination even yet unsatisfied, and asso- 
ciations as active as ever. I was now 
alone on the silent scene ; with a distant 
view of some poor peasant still patiently 
plying the trade of relic hunting. It was 
the grave of twenty thousand men, who, 
little more than a month before, had de- 
scended into the magnificent arena, full of ' 

t $ Behold the Congress dissolved." 
X Behold the play at an end." 



142 VISIT TO THE FIELD* 

lifeandhope. It is impossible to describe 
the sort of feeling resulting from the idea 
ofthe vast charnel-house around. 

All about lay the melancholy remains 
of the clothes, accoutrements, books, and 
letters of the dead. The two last, after 
the interment, were spread over the field, 
like the rubbish of a stationer's shop*. 

One moment more on the probable spot 
where Lord Wellington took refuge in a 
square for a considerable time, with the 
' French cuirassiers on the outside ; and I 
left the field, prouder of the name of Briton, 
tfian on any moment of self gratulation on 
the same score, during my life. 

On joining my friends, I found one of 
them had bought a cuirass and brace of 
beautiful pistok, of very considerable va- 
lue, which the poor woman who sold them 
had found in the cloak-case of a French 
general. She paid a compliment to Eng- 

.* A gentleman in Brussels showed mean interesting 
relic of this sort of spoil, found on the spot now dev 
scribed ; a coarsely printed copy of Scotch song*?, 
and some leaves of a pocket bible. 



VISIT TO THE FIELD. 143 

land, the sincerity of which she proved by 
the act with which it was accompanied. 
We happened to have no other coin but 
guineas to pay the purchase. The price 
was three. When she saw the coins she 
refused them ; not because she thought 
them bad money, but because she had 
never seen them before. We assured 
her that in Brussels she could, at the time, 
exchange them for twenty- six francs each. 
— She still hesitated, and urged her po- 
verty if we should deceive her. All at 
once however she took the money, adding, 
" Eh bien ! Vous Ues Anglais, et les 
Anglais ne trompent jamais*," 

For a nation of which such an impres- 
sion prevailed so universally as to have 
reached a poor Belgic peasant, was re- 
served, in the justification of the ways of 
Heaven to man, the victory of Waterloo. 



* " Well ! Yeu are English, and the English never 
deceive." 



CONCLUSION. 



When detailing examples of the firm- 
ness of the British troops through the 
whole of the day of Waterloo, I purposely 
postponed some reflections which at the 
time forcibly presented themselves ; that 
neither description nor narrative might 
suffer by interruption. 

The author of " the Character of the 
European armies" gives to th6 British the 
credit, as formerly stated, of being the 
most intrepid people in Europe. It is a 
higher feeling than national vanity which 
prompts me to apply this opinion by as- 
serting, that no nation in Europe would 
have triumphed, in the circumstances, at 
Waterloo, but the British— certainly the 
French least of any ; they have not the 



CONCLUSION. 145 

steady principle. Well their leaders 
know, that to wait attack with them is air- 
ways unsafe, and generally fatal. To the 
momentum of their enthusiasm motion is 
necessary— the excitement, the abandon, 
of forward overwhelming attack* An ar- 
tificial stimulus of shouts and acclama- 
tions, carries the French troops, and there 
follows a descent to a very ordinary cha- 
racter when the excitement fails, or the 
impetus is jarred or curtailed of Its full 
swing, by resistance. It is a finally hope- 
less expedient in such a crisis, to draw 
the engine back, to be wound up and 
let off again and again with decreasing 
force. 

The English character, on the other 
hand, is intrinsically strong ;— it is self- 
contained — it needs no external impulse 
-—it therefore defends as effectually as it 
assails. This difference was strongly 
marked throughout the peninsular war, 
but nevermore strongly than at Water- 
loo. When the French were ^attacked 
they were broken, and they fled from very 



146 CONCLUSION. 

inferior numbers, which had stood their 
utmost efforts for ten hours. 

It is impossible to imagine a more im- 
pressive picture than such a soldiery pre- 
sents, of the exalted moral of a high* 
minded cultivated people. A manly 
energy invigorates every part of their 
system, civil and military. It is a magni- 
ficent effect of the progressive improve- 
ment of centuries, without one retrograde 
step. In their undertakings, individual 
or national, failure must not be. There 
is a rivalry in the race of improvement. 
The soldier of such a country must be in- 
vincible. His energy is just a portion di- 
rected to his own vocation of the steady 
enterprise which is found in every other. 
If his enemy makes great efforts, he must 
just make greater, 

" His spirits rising as his toils increase." 

" He must not be beaten." He is at the 
same time perfectly assured that, in the 
battle, the same determination actuates hi? 



CONCLUSION. 147 

right and left-hand neighbours ; he can 
rely upon them as long as they keep their 
recollection and their feet. In aid of 
all, comes the conclusion of his cooler 
moments, that firmness is his only safety 
— that flight is almost certain destruction 
—that it is much wiser to drive off the dan- 
ger than to turn a defenceless back up- 
on it. 

Yet does this compound of feeling and 
reasoning belong to a people of a very 
superior order alone. It is principle and 
good sense ; totally different from the ha- 
bit, the superstition, or the attachment 
which rivets the Russian to the spot al- 
lotted him in a state of comparative insen- 
sibility or passive endurance ; and brave 
and spirited as are the Prussian and the 
Austrian, it is but Jately that they have„ 
been brought to the practical conclusion, 
that it is really possible to make head 
against Frenchmen : A spell, thank hea- 
ven, broken now for ever. — But at no 
time of the long war did the British sol- 
dier, more than the British sailor, hesitate 



148 CONCLUSION, 

an instant ; and although the mighty sys- 
tem of France often obliged him to retreat 
before her overwhelming power, he never 
actually fought in vain. 

It is a salutary truth, for the benefit of 
ages yet to come, that the French, least of 
any people, possess this respectable 
steadiness.™ Defending fortifications, is 
not here in question ; but in the fair onset 
of the open field, they have always fled 
from a spirited and determined attack, 
when their enemies were at all in numbers 
approaching to their own. From Maida 
to Waterloo, there has not been one exam- 
ple of their repelling it. They have made 
no figure since the snows of Russia 
brought their armies down to the numbers 
of their enemies. The overpowering 
force of their previous campaigns always 
gave them the choice of being the assail- 
ants. In Spain they were confounded 
with the attacks at Salamanca and Vitto- 
ria. If there were no other solution, the 
contrasted character of the British and 
French armies would at once determine 



CONCLUSION. 143 

on which side is the great, the good, the 
just cause.— Which army rushed with pro- 
fligate ferocity to destroy — which stood 
with unshaken constancy to preserve the 
peace of the world. Further comparison 
is a waste of words, — one hour of the vir- 
tue of Waterloo is sufficient to eclipse 
twenty noisy years of French triumph, to 
turn their glory into a term of ridicule, 
and to veil all the pillars and arches of vic- 
tory that ever deluded themselves or in- 
sulted the world. 

Without refusing to the brave Prussians 
any part of the high credit due to the ser- 
vice which their exertions at Waterloo 
have rendered to mankind, we may, with- 
out vain glory, rejoice that the power of 
Britain, single handed, has been so satis- 
factorily displayed. 

It is of vital consequence to the Europe- 
an cause, that the fact should be univer- 
sally admitted, that England, with hardly 
one fifth part of her regular force, was 
strong enough alone to defeat the finest 
n2 



150 CONCLUSION. 

army of France*. The reviving presump- 
tion of the French would have been in the 
precise proportion of the amount of the 
force which was necessary to put them 
down y an d no view of the matter can be 
conceived more unfavourable, than that 
the grand victory had been de facto gain- 
ed by the whole million of the enemies of 
France, which have at last poured into her 
bosom ; and she thereby left in the belief 
that she would not have been humbled, 
and therefore never will again, without 
the assemblage of the whole world against 
her, in its present admirable equipment 
and unqualified co-operation. 

It is just the finest feature of the Wel- 
Hngtonian victory, that the future security 
of the world is now advanced incalcula- 
bly, from where it was left last year by 
the combinations of Leipsic. If a single 
power baffled the utmost efforts of France, 

* It is usual for the Parisians to tell the Prussians, 
when they dare use the freedom^ that they only pick- 
ed up the game which the English killed. 



CONCLUSION. 151 

that power itself will in future go far to 
keep her in check, and prevent the de- 
struction of any other, before a coalition 
can be formed. To none of the powers 
was it of more real consequence that this 
fortune should fall, than to Great Bri- 
tain, the nearest and most active neigh- 
bour of France, The blood which it h^s 
cost,— the blood which has not sunk 
into the barren sand— might have been 
poured out less profusely, had the Prus- 
sian army come up in the morning, rather 
than in the evening ; but the moral effect 
on men's estimates of the result, and es- 
pecially on the French themselves, would 
have been immeasurably less favourable 
to the future equilibrium, and consequent 
peace of Europe. 

It is very commonly said and believed, 
that had Bonaparte directed his whole 
force against the Duke of Wellington first, 
he would have ^destroyed him ; and the 
omission of this is charged against him by 
Marshal Ney, as his grand error. No 
doubt, 150,000 men would have borne 
very hard on 30,000, with their newly 



15? CONCLUSION. 

raised auxiliaries, attacked too before 
they were concentrated. But this is al- 
together an unfair manner of compar- 
ing the soldiers of Great Britain and 
France. If we take the battle of Water- 
loo as it was, there occurs a much fair- 
er. 

Suppose first, That the 80,000 men 
under LoFd Wellington's command, 
had been all British; the French still 
13o,ooo. 

Suppose second, That our army had 
been 130,000 : equal numerically to tjie 
French ; and all British. 

Suppose third, That the French had 
just exchanged relative situations with 
the British, and with 30,000 French and 
50,000 foreigners, they had had to make 
head against 130,000 all British!— It is 
asked what would have been the progres- 
sive saving of time to the British army, 
on the 18th of June, in these three cases 
respectively ! 

Except when driven to it, as I some- 
times found myself during my visit to 



CONCLUSION. 15C 

Paris, by some violent instance of ego* 
isme or presumption, the above were not 
suppositions, which, in civility, I could 
offer for the rumination of Frenchmen 
with w r hom I conversed. I kept them, 
however, as a never-failing reserve to 
abridge discussions of this kind, when, 
without being sought by me, they came 
in my way. But they must not be for- 
gotten, either on the Continent or at 
home, in estimating the victory of Water- 
loo ; for they are just the considerations 
which confer upon that victory its full 
effect on the future security of the world ; 
& fortiori when it is considered, that by 
directing her well awakened attention to 
that branch of her power, there is no- 
thing to prevent England, if unfortunate* 
ly she shall be called upon to go to war 
again, to produce an army on the Conti- 
nent, of at least 1 00,000 men all Bri- 
tish ; a force, we are well entitled to 
conclude, strong enough for any purpose 
whatever. 

Moral reflections on the grand interpo- 



iU CONCLUSION, 

sition of Waterloo, are for ever conflict- 
ing in the mind, and injuring its power 
of discriminate and satisfactory conside- 
ration. The thought by far the most 
prominent, is the speed of the course 
which has been run - " the fell swoop" 
which in an instant, like the judgments 
of heaven when punishing by miracle, 
has made such an enemy to vanish, and 
wrought such a change in the face of 
human affairs. 

What has been effected? A few short 
days before, Europe entire was dazzled 
with the spectacle of the throne of Na- 
poleon Bonaparte again erected, as if 
by enchantment, more towering than 
ever. The ascent crowded with the 
princes of his dynasty, and captains of 
his host ; that host in countless numbers, 
encircling its chief, enthusiastic in his 
cause to desperrtion and phrenzy, and 
conducting the electrical ardour to sym- 
pathising, applauding, undoubting mil- 
lions around. Armies on armies rolling 
on to the scene ; and oaths and should 



CONCLUSION. 155 

from a people of power which had often 
shaken Europe to its extremes, astound* 
ing the world, and making the stoutest 
hearts to fear for the issue of the con- 
flict about to be renewed. 

A few moments before, and language 
had no terms of sufficient confidence, 
defiance, and vengeance. — " We shall 
not soon hear again of the Prussians, and 
as for the English, we shall now see what 
will become of them. The Emperor is 
here*." i 

Where is the Emperor now ? Where 
is his mighty army ? Where is the beau- 
tiful, the invincible, the sacred France? 
Never was there so short a space be- 
tween the highest presumption and the 
lowest prostration ; between an attitude 
which was the terror, and a humiliation 
which is the bye-word of nations. It is 
no vain glory when England, who dealt 
the blow, exults; as would have been 
the shout of France had the victory been 
hers. It is no triumph over an unfortu- 
nate and virtuous people. England re- 

* French letters from the field, immed,- ^y be" 
fore the battle. 



156 CONCLUSI(?N\ 

joices because sound principle is vindi- 
cated, and the times restored when Jus- 
tice has again some chance of making 
her voice heard in the world. 

Last of all, has | England with one 
blow, launched from his pinnacle the al- 
most deified captain of the long invinci- 
ble soldiery of France ; and forced him, 
with an inapplicable scrap of sentiment 
about Themistocles in his mouth, to bow 
his head to her grandeur, and mendicate 
his life from her mercy ! No part of the 
denouement of the wondrous drama has 
more astonished the French people and 
exalted England in their eyes, than that 
charm of hers, that spell of her power 
which has drawn the god of their senses 
and imaginations, their Emperor, by, to 
them, something like supernatural fasci- 
nation and fatality, absolutely into her 
own hands, to fix his destiny for ever. 

Had all been reversed,— had France 
overwhelmed England, language is in 
vain searched for a term to qualify the 
injury such a melancholy event would 
have produced to the great cause of hu- 



CONCLUSION. i57 

manity. The thought cannot be endur- 
ed for a moment .'—the victory of France 
over England !— the triumph once more, 
and the long reign for generations, of 
profligacy and cruelty, gilded over by 
fine sentiment ; by the words without the 
meaning of most exalted virtue : w T hile 
honour and principle were driven to a 
doubtful, at least permanent struggle, 
for their own existence, losing rank and 
estimation every hour among mankind. 
No interposition of the God of battles 
could have bestowed such a gift on hu- 
manity as the reunion of power with 
right ; the heart-reviving combination of 
real military and national glory with the 
less ostentatious but more substantial 
virtues x which morals and religion recom- 
mend ; and which have shown that they 
can neither be talked, nor laughed, nor 
fought out of fashion. A combination 
from which France herself, as most she 
needs, will yet most benefit ; when the 
ruffian violence, the knavery, and the 
pretensions of her Revolution, are re- 
membered only as a dreadful warning to 
mankind. © 



APPENDIX. 



LONDON GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY, 

Downing Street, June 22, 1815. 
Major the honourable H. Percy, arrived 
late last night with a dispatch from Field 
Marshal the Duke of Wellington, IL G. to 
Earl Bathurst, his Majesty's Principal Secre- 
tary of State for the War Department, of 
which the following is a copy : 

Waterloo, June 19, 1815. 
My Lord, 
Bonaparte having collected the 1st, 2d, 3d, 
4th, and 6th corps of the French army and 
the Imperial Guards, and nearly all the ca- 
valry on the Sambre, and between that river 
and the Meuse, between the 10th and the 
14th of the month, advanced on the 15th 
and attacked the Prussian posts at Thuin and 
Lobez, on the Sambre, at day-light in the 
morning* 



* 



BATTLE OP WATERLOO. 159 

I did not hear of these events tiJl the eve- 
ning of the 15th, and 1 immediately ordered 
the troops to prepare to march ; and after- 
wards to march to the left, as soon as I had 
intelligence from other quarters to prove that 
the enemy's movement upon Charleroi was 
the real attack. 

The enemy drove the Prussian posts ironr 
the Sambreon thatday; and General Ziethen, 
who commanded the corps which had been, 
at Charleroi, retired upon Fleurus; and 
Marshal Prince Blucher concentrated the 
Prussian army upon Sombreffe, holding the 
villages in front of his position of St. Amand 
and Ligny. 

The enemy continued his march along the 
road from Charleroi towards Brussels, and on 
the same evening, the 15th, attacked a bri*, 
gade of the army of the Netherlands, under 
Prince de Weimar, posted at Frasne, and 
forced it back to the farm-house on the same 
road, called Les Quatre Bras. 

The Prince of Orange immediately rein- 
forced this brigade with another of the same 
division, under General Perponcher; and, in 
the morning early, regained part of the ground 
which had been lost, so as to have the com- 



160 LONDON GAZETTE. 

mand of the communication leading from 
Nivelles and Brussels, with Marshal Blu- 
cher's position. 

In the meantime I had directed the whole 
army to march upon Les Quatre Bras, and 
the 5th division, under Lieutenant General 
Sir Thomas Picton, arrived at about half- 
past two in the day, followed by the corps 
of troops under the Duke of Brunswick, and 
afterwards by the contingent of Nassau. 

At this time the enemy commenced an at- 
tack upon Prince Blucher with his whole 
force, excepting the 1st and 2d corps ; and a 
corps of cavalry under General Ketlerman, 
with which he attacked our post at Lea 
Quatre Bras. 

The Prussian army maintained their posi- 
tion with their usual gallantry and perseve- 
rance, against a great disparity of numbers, 
as the 4th corps of their army, under 
General Bulow, had not joined, and I was 
not able to assist them as I wished, as I was 
attacked myself, and the troops, the cavalry 
in particular, which had a long distance to 
march, had not arrived. 

We maintained our position also, and 
completely defeated and repulsed all the 



BATTLE OP WATERLOO. 161 

enemy's attempts to get possession of it. The 
enemy repeatedly attacked us with a large 
body of infantry and cavalry, supported by 
a numerous and powerful artillery; he made 
several charges with the cavalry upon our 
infantry, but all were repulsed in the steadiest 
manner. In this affair, his Royal Highness 
the Prince of Orange, the Duke of Bruns- 
wick, and Lieutenant General Sir Thomas 
Picton, and Major- General Sir James Kempt, 
and Sir Dennis Pack, who were engaged 
from the commencement of the enemy's at- 
tack, highly distinguished themselves, as 
well as Lieutenant General Charles Baron 
Alten, Major General Sir C. Halket. Lieu- 
tenant-General Cooke, and Major Generals 
Maitland and Byng, as they successively 
arrived. The troops of the 5th division, 
and those of the Brunswick corps, were t,»ng 
and severely engaged, ami conducted them- 
selves with the utmost gallantry. I 
particularly mention the 28th. 42d, 78tK and 
92d regiments, and the battalion of Lano- 
verians. 

Our loss was great, lis your Lord?hio will 
perceive by the enclosed return ; and I have 
particularly to regret his Serene Highness 

o 2 



162 liONDON GAZETTE. 

the Duke of Brunswick, who fell, fighting 
gallantly, at the head of his troops. 

Although Marshal BJucher had maintain- 
ed his position at Sombref, he still found 
himself much weakened by the severity of 
the contest in which he had been engaged, 
and, as the fourth corps had not arrived, he 
determine*to fail back, and«concentrated his 
army upon Wavre ; and he marched in the 
night after the action was over. 

This movement of the Marshal's rendered 
necessary a corresponding one on my part } 
and I retired from the farm of Quatre Bras 
upon Genappe, and thence upon Waterloo 
the next morning, the 17th, at ten o'clock. 

The enemy made no effort to pursue Mar* 
shal Blucher. On the contrary, a patrole 
which I sent to Sombref, in the morning, 
found all quiet, and the enemy's videttes 
fell back as the patrole advanced. Neither 
did he attempt to molest our march to the 
rear, although made in the middle of the 
day, excepting by following with a large 
body of cavalry, (brought from his right) the 
cavalry under the Earl of Uxbridge. 

This gave Lord Uxbridge an opportunity 
of charging them with the 1st Life Guards, 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 163 

upon their debouche from the village of 
Genappe, upon which occasion his lordship 
has declared himself to be well satisfied with 
that regiment. 

The position which I took up, in front of 
Waterloo, crossed the high roads from Char- 
leroi and Nivelle, and had its right thrown 
back to a ravine near Merke Braine, which 
was occupied, and its left extended to a 
height above the hamlet Ter la Haye, which 
was likewise occupied. In front of the right 
centre, and near tne Nivelle road, we occu- 
pied the house and garden of Hougomont, 
which covered the return of that flank; and 
in front of the left centre, we occupied the 
farm of La Haye Sainte. By our left we 
communicated with Marshal Prince Biueher, 
at Wavre, through Ohaim ; and the Marshal 
had promised me, that in case we should be 
attacked, he would support me with one or 
more corps, as might be necessary. 

The enemy collected his army, with the 
exception of the third corps, which had 
been sent to observe Marshal Blueher, on a 
range of heights in our front, in the course 
of the night of the 17th and yesterday 
morning; and at about ten o'clock he com- 



164 LONDON GAZETTE. 

menced a most Curious attack upon our post 
at Hougomont. I had occupied that post 
with a detachment from General Byng's 
brigade of Guards, which was in position in 
its rear; and it was for some time under the 
cammand of Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonald, 
and afterwalds of Colonel Home; and I am 
happy to add, that it was maintained, 
throughout the day with the utmost gal- 
lantry hy these brave troops, notwithstand- 
ing the repeated efforts of large bodies of (he 
enemy to obtain possession of it. 

This attack upon the right of our centre 
was accompanied by a very heavy can- 
nonade upon our whole line, which was des- 
tined to support the repeated attacks of ca- 
valry and infantry occasionally mixed, but 
sometimes separate, which were made upon 
it. In one of these, the enemy carried the 
farm-house of La Haye Sainte, as the de- 
tachment of the light battalion of the legion 
which occupied it had expended all its am- 
munition, and the enemy occupied the only 
communication there was with them. 

The enemy repeatedly charged our infan- 
try with his cavalry; hut these attacks were 
uniformly unsuccessful and they afforded 



BATTLE OP WATERLOO. 165 

opportunities to our cavalry to charge, in one 
of which Lord E. Somerset's brigade, Royal 
Horse Guards, and 1st Dragoon Guards, 
highly distinguished themselves ; as did that 
of Major General Sir W. Pomonby, having 
taken many prisoners and an eagle. 

These attacks were repeated till about 
seven in the evening, when the enemy made 
a desperate effort with the cavalry and in- 
fantry, to force our left centre, near the farm 
of La Haye Sainte, which, after a severe 
contest was defeated ; and having observed 
that the troops retired from the attack in 
great confusion, and that the march of 
General Bulow's corps by Frichermont upon 
Planchenoit and La Belle Alliance, had be- 
gun to take effect; and as I could perceive 
the fire of his cannon, a*<J as Marshal Prince 
Blucherhad joined in person, with a corps 
of his army to the left of our line by Ohain, 
I determined to attack the enemy, and im- 
mediately advanced the whole line of in- 
fantry, supported by the cavalry and artillery. 
The attack succeeded in every point ; the 
enemy was forced from his position on the 
heights, and fled in the utmost confusion) 
leaving behind him, as far at I could judges 



1*66 LONDON GAZETTE. 

ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY PIECES OF CAN- 
NON, with their ammunition, which fell into 
our hands, 

I continued the pursuit till long after 
dark, and then discontinued it, only on ac 
count of the fatigue of our troops, who had 
been engaged during twelve hours, and be- 
cause I found myself on the same road with 
Marshal Blucher,who assured me of his in- 
tention to follow the enemy throughout the 
night: he has sent me word this morning, 
that he had taken sixty pieces of cannon 
belonging to the Imperial Guard, and 
several carriages, baggage, &c. belonging to 
Bonaparte, in Genappe. 

I propose to move this morning upon 
Nivelles, and not to discontinue my opera- 
tions* 

Your lordship will observe, that such a 
desperate action could not be fought, and 
such advantages could not be gained, with- 
out great loss ; and, I am sorry to add, that 
ours has been immense. In Lieutenant- 
General Sir Thomas Picton, his Majesty has 
sustained the loss of an officer who has fre- 
quently distinguished himself in his service; 
and he fell, gloriously leading his division to 



BATTLE ©F WATERLOO. 107 

a charge with bayonets, by which one of the 
most serious attacks made by the enemy on 
our position, was defeated. 

The Earl of Uxbridge, after having suc- 
cessfully got through the arduous day, re- 
ceived a wound by almost the last shot fired, 
which will, I am afraid, deprive his Majesty 
for some time of his services. 

His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange 
disffogftflihed himself by his gallantry and 
conduct till he received a wound from a 
musket-ball through the shoulder, which 
obliged him to quifcihe^fteM* 

It gives me the greatest satisfaction to as- 
sure your lordship, that the army never, upon 
any occasion, conducted itself better. The 
division of Guards, under Lieutenant-Ge 
neral Cooke, who is severely wounded, 
Major-General Maitland and Major Byng, 
set an example which was followed by all ; 
and there is no officer nor description of 
troops, that did not behave well, 

1 must, however, particularly mention, for 
his Royal Highness's approbation, Lieute- 
nant-General Sir H. Clinton, Major-General 
Adam, Lieutenant-General Charles Baron 
Alien, severely wounded j Major-General 



168 LONDON GAZETTE. 

Sir Colin Halket, severely wounded; Co- 
lonel Ompteda, Colonel Mitchael, com- 
manding a brigade of the 4th division » 
Major-Generals Sir Jame3 Kempt and Sir 
Dennis Pack, Major-General Lambert, Ma- 
jor-General Lord E. Somerset, Major-Ge- 
neral Sir W. Ponsonby, Major-General Sir 
C. Grant, and Major-General Sir H. Vivian ; 
Major-General Sir O. Vandeleur ; Major- 
General Count Dornberg. I am also par- 
ticularly indebted to General Lord Hill for 
bis assistance and conduct upon this, as 
upon all former occasions. 

The artillery and engineer departments 
were conducted much to my satisfaction by 
Colonel Sir G. W6od, and Colonel Smyth; 
and I had every reason to be satisfied with 
the conduct of the Adjutant-General Majoi; 
General Barnes, who was wounded, and of 
the Quarter-Master-General, Colonel Delan- 
cy, who was killed by a cannon-shot in the 
middle of the action. This officer is a se- 
rious loss to his Majesty's service, and to 
me at this moment. I was likewise much 
indebted to the assistance of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Lord Fitzroy Somerset, who was 
aeverely wounded, and of the officers com- 



BATTLE OP WATERLOO. 1 68 

posing my personal staff, who have suffered 
severely in this action. Lieutenant-Colo- 
Bel the Honourable Sir Alexander Gordon, 
who has died of his wounds, was a most pro- 
mising officer, and is a serious loss to hie 
majesty's service. 

General Kruse, of the Nassau service, 
likewise conducted himself much to my 
satisfaction, as did General Trip, command^ 
ing the heavy brigade of cavalry, and Ge- 
I neral Vanhope, commanding a brigade of 
infantry of the King of the Netherlands. 

General Pozzo di Borgo, General Baron 
Vincent, General Muffling, and General 
Alava, were in the field during the action, 
and rendered me every assistance in their 
power. Baron Vincent is wounded, but I 
hope not severely ; and General Pozzo di 
Borgo received a contusion. 

I should not do justice to my feelings, or 
to Marshal Blitcher and the Prussian army, 
if 1 did not attribute the successful result of 
this arduous day to the cordial and timely 
assistance received from them. 

The operation of General Bulow upon 
the enemy's flpmk was a most decisive one ; 
and, even if I had not found myself in a 



170 . LONDON CAZETTE. 

situation to make the attack, which pro* 
duced the final result, it would have forced 
the enemy to retire, if his attacks should 
have failed, and would have prevented him 
from taking advantage of them, if they 
should unfortunately have succeeded. 

I send, with this dispatch, two eagles, 
taken by the troops in this action, which Ma- 
jor Percy will have the honour of laying at 
the ieet of his Royal Highness — I beg leave 
to recommend him to your lordship's protec- 
tion. 

I have the honour, &c. 

(Signed) Wellington, 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 171 

Marshal Bluchers Official Report of the Operations 
of the Prussian Army of the Lower Rhine. 

It was on the 15th of this month, that Napoleon, 
after having collected, on the 14th, five corps of his 
army, and the several corps of the guard, between 
Maubeuge and Beaumont, commenced hostilities. 
The points of concentration of the four Prussian 
corps, were Fleurus, Namur, Ciney, and Hannut ; 
the situation of which made it possible to unite the 
army, in one of these points, in 24 hours. 

On the 15th, Napoleon advanced by Thuin, upon 
the two banks of the Sambre, against Charleroi. 
General Zeithen had collected the first corps^near 
Fleurus, and had, on that day, a very warm action 
with the enemy, who, after taking Charleroi, di~ 
rected his march upon Fleurus. General Zeithen 
maintained himself in his position near that place. 

Field Marshal Blucher intending to fight a great 
battle with the enemy as soon as possible, the three 
other corps of the Prussian army were consequently 
directed upon Sombref, a league and a half from 
Fleurus, where the 2d and 3d corps were to arrive 
on the 15th, and the 4th corps on the 16th. 

Lord Wellington had united his army between Ath 
and Nivelles, which enabled him to assist Field Mar- 
shal Blucher, in case the battle should be fought on 
the 15th, 



172 PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT, 

JUNE 16.— BATTLE OF LIGNY. 

The Prussian army was posted on the heights be- 
tween Brie and Sombre f, and beyond the last place, 
and occupied with a large force the villages of St. 
Amand and Ligny, situate in its front. I 'ean time, 
only three corps of the army bad joined ; the fourth, 
which wag rationed between Liege andHanrmt, has 
been delayed in its march by several circum stances, 
and was not yet come up. Nevertheless, Field Mar- 
shal Biucher resolved to give battle ; Lord Wel- 
lington having already put in motion, to support him, 
a strong division of his army, as well as his whole re- 
serve, stationed in the environs of Brussels, and the 
fpurth corps of the Prussian army being also on the 
point of arriving. 

The battle began at three o'clock in the afternoon. 
The enemy brought up above 130,000 men. The 
Prussian army was 80,000 strong. The village of 
St Amand was the first point attacked by the ene- 
my, who carried it, after a vigorous resistance. 

He then directed his efforts against Ligny. It is a 
large village, solidly built, situate on a rivulet of the 
same name. It was there that a contest began which 
may be considered as one of the most obstinate re- 
corded in history. Villages have often been taken 
and retaken ; but here the combat continued for five 
hours in the villages themselves, and the movements, 
forwards or backwards, were confined to a very nar- 
row space. On both sides fresh troops continually 
came up. Each army had, behind the part of the 
village which it occupied, great masses of infantry, 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 173 

which maintained the combat, and were continually 
renewed by the reinforcements which they received 
from their rear, as well as from the heights on the 
right and left. About two hundred cannon were di- 
rected from both sides against the village, which was 
on fire in several places at once. From time to time 
the combat extended through the whole line, the en- 
emy having also directed numerous troops against 
the third corps ; however, the main contest was near 
Ligny, Things seemed to take a favourable turn 
for the Prussian troops, a part of the village of St. 
Amand having been retaken by a battalion command- 
ed by the Field Marshal in per 4 ** >n ; in consequence of 
which advantage we had regained a height, which 
had been abandoned after the loss of St. Amand. 
Nevertheless, the battle continued about Ligny with 
the same fury. The issue seemed to depend on the 
arrival of the EnglisTi troops, or on that of the fourth 
corps of the Prussian army; in fact, the arrival of 
this last division would have afforded the FieldMarshal 
the means of making immediately, with the right wing, 
an attack from which great success might be expect- 
ed ; but news arrived that the English division destined 
to support us, was violently attacked by a corps of the 
French army, and that it was with great difficulty it 
had maintained itself in its position at Quatre Bras. 
The fourth corps of the army did not appear, so that 
we were forced to maintain, alone, the contest with 
an army greatly superior in numbers. The evening 
was already much advanced, and the combat about 
Ligiiy continued with the same fury and the same 
p 2 



174 PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT. 

equality of success ; we invoked, but in vain, the 
arrival of those succours which were so neces- 
sary ; the danger became every hour more and 
more urgent : all the divisions were engaged, or had 
already been so, and there was not any corps at hand 
able to support them. Suddenly, a division of the 
enemy's infantry, which, by favour of the night, had 
made a circuit round the village without being ob- 
served, at the same time that some regiments of 
cuirassiers had forced the passage on the other side, 
took, in the rear, the main body of our army, which 
was posted behind the houses. This surprise, on the 
part of the enemy, was decisive, especially at the 
moment when our cavalry, also posted on a height 
behind the village, was repulsed by the enemy's ca- 
valry in repeated attacks. 

Our infantry, posted behind Ligny, though forced 
to retreat, did not suffer itself to be discouraged^ 
either by being surprised by the enemy in the dark- 
ness, a" circumstance which exaggerates in the mind 
of man the dangers to which he finds himself expo- 
sed, or, by the idea of seeing itself surrounded on all 
sides. Formed in masses, it cooly repulsed all the at- 
tacks of the cavalry, and retreated in good order 
upon the heights, whence it continued its retrograde 
movement upon Tilly. In consequence of the sud- 
aen irruption of the enemy's cavalry, several of our 
cannons, in their precipitate retreat, had taken di- 
rections which led them to defiles, in which they ne- 
cessarily fell into disorder; in this manner, 15 pieces 
fell into the hands of the enemy. At the distance of 
a quarter of a league from the field sf battle the 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 175 

army formed again. The enemy did not venture to 
pursue it. The village of Brie remained in our pos- 
session during the night, as well as Sombref, where 
General Thielman had fought with the third corps, 
and whence he, at day-break, slowly began to re- 
treat towards Gembloux, where the fourth corps, 
under General Bulow, had at length arrived during 
the night. The first and second corps proceeded in 
the morning behind the defile of Mount St. Guibert. 
Our loss in killed and wounded was great ; the ene- 
my, however, took from us no prisoners, except a 
part of our wounded. The battle was lost, but not 
our honour. Our soldiers had fought with a bravery 
which equalled every expectation ; their fortitude re- 
mained unshaken, because every one retained his con- 
fidence in his own strength. On this day, Field Marshal 
Blucher had encountered the greatest dangers. A 
charge of cavalry, led on by himself, had failed. While 
that of the enemy was vigorously pursuing, a musket 
shot struck the Field Marshal's horse : the animal, far 
from being stopped in his career by this wound, be- 
gan to gallop more furiously till it dropped down 
dead. The Field Marshal, stunned by the violent 
fall, lay entangled under the horse. The enemy's 
cuirassiers, following up their advantage, advanced : 
our last horseman had already passed by the Field 
Marshal, an Adjutant alone remained with him, and 
had just alighted, resolved to share his fate. The 
danger was great, but heaven watched over us. The 
enemy, pursuing their charge, passed rapidly by the 
Field Marshal without seeing him : the next moment, 
a second c ^ ar S e °f our cavalry having repulsed them? 



176 PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT. 

they again passed by him with the same precipitation, 
*not perceiving him, any more than they had done the 
first time. Then, but not without difficulty, the 
Field Marshal was disengaged from under the dead * 
horse, and he immediately mounted a dragoon horse. 
- On the 17th, in the evening, the Prussian array con- 
centrated itself in the environs of Wavre. Napo- 
laon put himself in motion against Lord Wellington 
upon the great road leading from Charleroi to Brus- 
sels. An English division maintained on the same 
day, near Quatre Bras, a very severe contest with 
the enemy. Lord Wellington had taken a position 
on the road to Brussels, having his .right wing leaning 
upon Braine-la-Len, the center near Mount St. Jean, 
and the left wing against La Haye Sainte. Lord 
.Wellington wrote to the Field Marshal, that he was 
resolved to accept the battle in this position if the 
Field Marshal would support him with two corps of 
his army. The Field Marshal promised to come with 
his whole army ; he even proposed, in case Napo- 
Jeon should not attack, that the Allies themselves, 
with their whole united force, should attack him the 
.next day. This may serve to show how little the 
battle of the 16th had disorganized the Prussian 
army, or weakened its moral strength. Thus ended 
*heday of the 17th. 

BATTLE OF THE 18th. 

At break of day the Prussian army again began 
to more. The 4th and 2d corps marched by St. 



BATTLE OP WATERLOO. 177 

Lambert, where they were to take a position, cover- 
ed by the forest, near Frichermont, to take the ene- 
my in the rear, when the moment should appear fa- 
vourable. The first corps was to operate by Ohain, 
on the right flank of the enemy. The third corps 
was to follow slowly, in order to afford succour in case 
of need. The battle began about ten o'clock in the 
morning. The English army occupied the heights of 
Mount St. Jean ; that of the French was on the 
heights before Planchenoit : the former was about 
80,000 strong ; the enemy had above 130,000. In a 
abort time, the battle became general along the whole 
line. It seems that Napoleon had the design to throw 
the left wing upon the centre, and thus to effect the 
separation of the English army from the Prussian, 
which he believed to be retreating upon Maestricht. 
For this purpose, he had placed the greatest part of 
his reserve in the centre, against his right wing, and 
upon this point he attacked with fury. The English 
army fought with a valour which it is impossible to 
surpass. The repeated charges of the Old Guard 
were baffled by the intrepidity of the Scottish regi- 
ments ; and at every charge the French cavalry was 
overthrown by the English cavalry. But the supe- 
riority of the enemy in numbers was too great ; Na- 
poleon continually brought forward considerable mas* 
ses, and, with whatever firmness the English troops 
maintained themselves in their position, it was not 
possible but that such heroic exertions must have a 
limit. 

It was half past four o'clock. The excessive difi> 



17B PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT. 

culties of the passage by the defile of St. Lambert, 
bad considerably retarded the march of the Prussian 
columns, so that only two brigades of the fourth corps 
had arrived at the covered position which was as- 
signed to them. The decisive moment was come ; 
there was not an instant to be lost. The Generals 
did not suffer it to escape. They resolved imme- 
diately to begin the attack with the troops which 
they had at hand. General Bulow, therefore, with 
two brigades and a corps of cavalry, advanced 
rapidly upon the rear of the enemy's right wijag. The 
enemy did not lose his presence of mind ; he instant- 
ly turned his reserve against us, and a murderous 
conflict began on that side. The combat remained 
long uncertain, while the battle with the English 
army still continued with the same violence. 

Towards six o'clock in the evening,. we received 
the news that General Thielman, with the third 
corps, was attacked near Wavre by a very consider- 
able corps of the enemy, and that they were already 
disputing the possession of the town. The Field 
Marshal, however, did not suffer himself to be distur- 
bed by this news : it was on the spot where he was, 
and no where else, that the affair was to be decided. 
A conflict continually supported by the same ob- 
stinacy, and kept" up by fresh troops, could alone in- 
sure the victory, and if it were obtained here, any 
reverse sustained near Wavre was of little conse* 
quence. The columns, therefore, continued their 
movements. It was half an hour past seven, and the 
issue of the battle was still uncertain. The whole of 



fcATTLE OF WATERLOO. 179 

the 4th corps, and a part of the 2d, under Genera! 
Pirch, had successively come up. The French troops 
fought with desperate fury ; however, some uncer- 
tainty was perceived in their movements, and it was 
observed that some pieces of cannon were retreating. 
At this moment, the first columns of the corps of 
General Ziethen arrived on the points of attack, 
near the village of Smonne*, on the enemy's right 
flank, and instantly charged. This moment decided 
the defeat of the enemy. His right wing was broken 
in three places ; he abandoned his positions. Our 
troops rushed forward at the pas de charge, and at- 
tacked him on all sides, while at the same time the 
whole English line advanced. 

Circumstances were extremely favourable to the 
attack formed by the Prussian army : the ground rose 
in an amphitheatre, so that our artillery could freely 
open its fire from the summit of a great many 
heights, which rose gradually above each other, and 
in the intervals of which the troops descended into the 
plain, formed into brigades, and in the greatest 
order : while fresh troops continually unfolded them- 
selves, issuing from the forest on the height behind 
us. The enemy, however, still preserved means to 
retreat, till the village of Planchenoit, which he had 
on his rear, and which was defended by the guard, 
was, after several bloody attacks, carried by storm. 
From that time the retreat became a rout, which 
soon spread throughout the whole French army;, 
which, in its dreadful confusion, hurrying away every 
thing that attempted to stop it, soon assumed the ap 



180 PPOTSSIAN ACCOUNT. 

pearance of the flight of an army of barbarians. It 
was half-past nine. The field Marshal assembled 
all the superior officers, and gave orders to send the 
last horse arid the last man in pursuit of the enemy. 
The van of the army accelerated its march. The 
French being pursued without intermission, was ab- 
solutely disorganized. The causeway presented the 
appearance of an immense shipwreck ; it was co- 
vered with an innumerable quantity of cannon, cais- 
sons, carriages, baggage, arms and wrecks of every 
kind. Those of the enemy who had attempted to 
repose for a time, and had not expected to be so 
quickly pursued, were driven from more than 
nine bivouacs. In some villages they attempted to 
maintain themselves ; but as soon as they heard the 
beating of our drums, or the sound of the trumpet, 
they either fled or threw themselves into the houses, 
where they were cut down or made prisoners. It 
was moonlight, which greatly favoured the pursuit, 
for the whole march was but a continued chase, 
either in the corn fields or the houses. 

At Genappe, the enemy had entrenched himself 
with cannon, and overturned carriages : at our ap- 
proach, we suddenly heard in the town a great noise 
and a motion of carriages ; at the entrance we were 
exposed to a brisk fire of musketry ; we replied by 
some cannon shot, followed by a hurrah, and an 
instant after, the town was ours. It was here that, 
among many other equippages, the carriage of Na- 
poleon was taken ; he had just left il to mount on 
horseback, and, in his hurry, had forgotten in it his 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 181 

sword and hat. Thus the affairs continued till break 
of day. About 40,000 men, in the most complete 
disorder, the remains of the whole army, have saved 
themselves, retreating through Charleroi, partly with- 
out arms, and carrying with them only 27 pieces of 
their numerous artillery. 

The enemy, in his flight, had passed all his for- 
tresses, the only defence of his frontiers, which. are 
now passed by our armies. 

At three o'clock, Napoleon had dispatched, from 
the field of battle,, a courier to Paris, with the news 
that victory was no longer doubtful : a few hours 
after, he had no longer any army left. We have not 
yet any exact account of the enemy's loss ; it is 
enough to know, that two-thirds of the whole were 
killed, wounded, or prisoners : among the latter-are 
Generals Monton, Duhesme, and Compans. Up to 
this time about 300 cannon, and above 500 caissons, 
are in our hands. 

Few victories have been so complete ; and there 
is certainly no example that an army, two days after 
losing a battle, engaged in such an action, and so 
gloriously maintained it. Honour be to troops capa- 
ble of so much firmness and valour ! In the middle of 
the position occupied by the French army, and ex- 
actly upon the height, is a farm called La Belle Al- 
liance. The march of all the Prussian columns was 
directed towards this farm, which was visible from 
every side. It was there that Napoleon was during 
the battle ; it was thence that he gave his orders, 
tltat he flattered himself with the hopes of victory : 



a 



182 PRUSSIAN ACCOUNT. 

and it was there that his ruin was decided. There, 
too, it was, that by a happy chance, Field Marshal 
Blucher and Lord Wellington met in the dark, and 
mutually saluted each other as victors. 

In commemoration of the alliance which now sub- 
sists between the English and Prussian nations, of 
the union of the two armies, and their reciprocal 
confidence, the Field Marshal desired, that this bat- 
tle should bear the name of La Belle Alliance. 

By the order of Field Marshal Blucher, 

General GNEISENAR 



SPANISH ACCOUNT. 

The following is a copy of a dispatch irom General 
Miguel Alava, Minister Plenipotentiary to the King 
of the Netherlands from the King of Spain, to Don 
Pedro Cevallos, Principal Secretary of State to 
Ferdinand VII, 

(TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH.) 

Supplement to the Madrid-Gazette of Thursday, 13/fc 
July, 1815. 

Lieutenant-General of the Royal Armies, Don 
Miguel de Alava, Minister Plenipotentiary of His 
Excellency Don Pedro Cevallos, First Secretary of 
State, the following letter : 

Most Excellent Sir, 

The short space of time that has intervened be- 
tween the departure of the last post and the victory 
of the 18th, has not allowed me to write to your Ex- 
cellency so diffusely as I could have wished : and 
although the army is, at this moment, on the point of 
marching, and I also am going to set out for the 
Hague to deliver my credentials, which I did not re^> 
ceive till this morning ; nevertheless, I will give 
your Excellency some details respecting this impor- 
tant event, which, possibly, may bring us to the end 
of the war much sooner than we had any reason to 



184 SPANISH ACCOUNT. 

I informed your Excellency, under date of the 16th ' 
inst. that Bonaparte, marching from Maubeuge and 
Philippevillej had attacked the Prussian posts on the 
Sambre, and that, after driving them from Charleroi, 
he had entered that city on the 15th. 

On the 16th, the Duke of Wellington ordered his 
army to assemble on the point of Quatre Bras, where 
the roads cross from Namur to Nivelle, and from 
Brussels to Charleroi ; and he himself 'proceeded to 
the same point, at seven in the morning. 

On his arrival, he found the Hereditary Prince of 
Orange with a division of his own army, holding the 
enemy in check, till the other divisions of the army 
were collected. 

By this time, the British diviskn, under General 
Picton, had arrived^ with which the Duke kept up an 
unequal contest with more than 30,000 of the enemy, 
without losing an inch of ground. The British Guards, 
several regiments of Infantry, and the Scottish Brig- 
ade, covered themselves with glory on this day ; and 
Lord Wellington told me, on the following da}', that 
he never saw his troops behave better, during the 
number of years he had commanded them. 

The French Cuirassiers likewise suffered much on 
their part ; for, confiding to their breast-plates, they 
approached the British squares so near, that they kil- 
led officers of the 42d regiment with their swords ; 
but those valiant men, without flinching, kept up so 
strong a fire, that the whole ground was covered with 
the Cuirassiers and their horses. 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 185 

In the meantime, the troops kept coming up ; and 
the night put an end to the contest in.this quarter. 

During this time, Bonaparte was fighting, with the 
remainder of his forces, against Marshal Blucher, 
with whom he had commenced a bloody action at 
five in the afternoon ; from which time, till nine in 
the evening, he was constantly repulsed by the Prus- 
sians, with great loss on both sides. But, at that 
moment he made his cavalry charge with so much 
vigour, that they broke the Prussian line of infantry, 
and introduced disorder and confusion throughout. 

Whether it was that Bonaparte did not perceive 
this incident, or that he had experienced a great 
loss ; or, what is more probable, that. Marshal 
Blucher had re-established the battle, the fact is, 
that he derived no advantage whatever from this ac- 
cident, and that he left him quiet during the whole of 
the night of the 16th. 

Lord Wellington, who, by the morning of the 17th, 
had collected the whole of his army in the position of 
Quatre Bras, was combining his measures to attack 
the enemy, when he received a dispatch from Mar- 
shal Blucher, participating to him the events of the 
preceding day, together with the incident that had 
snatched the victory out of his hands : adding, that 
the loss he had experienced was of such a nature, that 
he was forced to retreat to Wavre, on our left, where 
the corps of Bulow would unite with him, and that 
on the 19th he would be ready for any thing he might 
wish to undertake. 

In consequence of this. Lord Wellington was oblig- 



186 SPANISH ACCOUNT. 

ed immediately to retreat, and this he effected in such 
a manner, that -the enemy did not dare to interrupt 
him in it. He took up a position on Braine-le-Leud, 
in front of the great wood of Soignes, as he had pre- 
viously determined, and placed his head quarters in 
Waterloo. 

I joined the army on that morning, though I had 
received no orders, to that effect, because I believed 
that I should thus best serve his' Majesty, and at the 
same time fulfil your Excellency's directions ; and 
this determination has afforded me the satisfaction of 
having been present at the most important battle, 
that has been fought for many centuries, in its conse- 
quences, its duration, and the talents of the chiefs 
who commanded on both sides, and because the 
peace of the world, and the future security of all 
Europe, may be said to have depended on its result. 

The position occupied by his lordship was very 
good ; but towards the centre, it had various weak 
points, which required good troops to guard them, 
and much science and skill on the part of the general 
in chief. These qualifications, were, howeveF, to be 
found in abundance in the British troops and their il- 
lustrious commander ; and, it may be asserted, with- 
out offence to any one, that to them both belongs the 
chief part, or all the glory of this memorable day. 

On the right of the position, and a little in advance, 
was a country house, the importance of which Lord 
Wellington quickly perceived, because, without it, 
the position could not be attacked on that side, and 
it might therefore be considered as its key. 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. ' 187 

The Duke confided this important point to three 
companies of the English guards under the command 
of Lord Saltoun, and laboured, during the night of 
the 17th, in fortifying it as well as possible, covering 
its garden, and a wood which served as its park, with 
Nassau troops, as sharp-shooters. 

At half past ten, a movement was observed in the 
enemy's line, and many officers were seen coming 
from and going to a particular point, where there 
was a very considerable corps of infantry, which we 
afterwards understood to be the Imperial guard ; 
here was Bonaparte in person, and from this point is- 
sued all the orders. In the mean time, the enemy's 
masses were forming, and every thing announced the 
approaching combat, which began at half past 
eleven, the enemy attacking desperately with one of 
his corps, and, with his usal shouts, the country-house 
on the right. 

The Nassau troops found it necessary to abandon 
their post ; but the enemy met such resistance in the 
house, that though they surrounded it on three sides, 
and attacked it most desperately, they were com- 
pelled to desist from their enterprise, leaving a great 
number of killed and wounded on the spot. Lord 
Wellington sent fresh English troops, who recover- 
ed the wood and garden, and the combat ceased, for 
the present, on this side. 

The enemy then opened a horrible fire of artillery 
ifrom more than 200 pieces, under cover of which 
^Bonaparte made a general attack, from the centre 
;o the right, with infantry and cavalry, in such num 



^8t> SPANISH ACCOVN'f. 

bers, that it required all the skill of his lordship to 
post his troops, and all the good qualities of the latter, 
to resist the attack. 

General Picton, who was with his division on the 
road from Brussels to Charleroi, advanced with the 
bayonet to receive them ; but was unfortunately kil- 
led at the moment when the enemy, appalled by the 
attitude of this division, fired, and then fled. 

The English life Guards then charged with the 
greatest vigour, and the 49th and 105th French re- 
giments lost their respective eagles in this charge, to- 
gether with from 2 to 3000 prisoners. A column of 
cavalry, at whose head were the cuirassiers, advan- 
ced to charge the life guards, and thus save their in- 
fantry, but the guards received them with the great- 
est valour, and the most sanguinary cavalry fight, 
perhaps eyer witnessed, was the consequence. 

The French cuirassiers were completely beaten, 
in spite of their cuirasses, by troops who had nothing 
of the sort, and lost one of their eagles in this con- 
flict, which was taken by the heavy English cavalry, 
called the Royals. 

About this time, accounts came that the Prussian 
corps of Bulow had arrived at St. Lambert, and that 
Prince Blucher, with the other under the command 
of General Thielman (Ziethen) was advancing, with 
all haste, to take part in the combat, leaving the 
other two in Wavre, which had suffered so much in 
the battle of the 15th, in Fleurus. The arrival of 
these troops was so much the more necessary, in 
consequence of the forces of the enemy being more 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 189 

than triple, and our loss having been horrid during 
an unequal combat, from half past eleven in the 
morning, till five in the afternoon. 

Bonaparte, who did not believe them to be so 
near, and who reckoned upon destroying Lord Wel- 
lington before their arrival, perceived that he had 
fruitlessly lost more than five hours, and that in the 
critical position in winch he would soon be placed, 
there remained no other resource but that of despe-' 
rately attacking the weak part of the English posi- 
tion, and thus, if possible, beat the Duke before his 
right was turned, and attacked by the Prussians. 

Henceforward, therefore, the whole was a repeti- 
tion of attacks by cavalry and infantry, supported 
by more than 300 pieces of artillery, which unfortu- 
nately made horrible ravages in our line, and killed 
and wounded officers, artillerists, and horses, in the 
weakest part of the position. 

The enemy, aware of this destruction, made a 
charge with the whole cavalry of his guard, which 
took" some pieces of cannon that could not be with- 
drawn ; but the Duke, who was at this point, charg- 
ed them with three battalions of English and three 
of Brunswickers, and compelled them in a moment 
to abandon the artillery, though we were unable to 
withdraw them for want of horses ; nor did they 
dare to advance to recover them. 

At last, about seven in the evening, Bonaparte 
made a last effort, and putting himself at the head 
of his guurds, attacked the above point of the En- 
glish position with such vigour, that he drove back 



1#& SPANISH ACCOST. 

the Brimswickers who occupied part of it ; and, for 
a moment, the victory was undecided, and even more 
than doubtful. 

The Duke, who felt that the moment was most 
critical, spoke to the Brunswick troops with that as- 
cendancy which every great man possesses, made 
them return to the charge, and, putting himself at 
their head, again restored the combat, exposing him- 
self to every kind of personal danger. 

Fortunately, at this moment, he perceived the fire of 
Marshal Blucher, who was attacking the enemy's right 
with his usual impetuosity ; and the moment of de- 
cisive attack being come, the Duke put himself at 
the head of the English Foot-Guards, spoke a few 
words to them, which were replied to by a general 
hurrah, and his Grace himself leading them on with 
his hat, they marched at the point of the bayonet, to 
come to c^ose action with the Imperial Guard. But 
the latter began a retreat, which was sopn converted 
into flight, and the most complete rout ever witnes- 
sed by military men. Entire columns, throwing 
down their arms and cartouch-boxes, in order to 
escape the better, abandoned the spot on which they 
had been formed, where we took possession of 150 
pieces of cannon. The rout at Vittoria was not 
comparable to this, and it only resembles it, inas- 
much as on both occasions-, they lost all the train of 
artillery and stores of the army, as well as all the 
baggage. 

The Duke followed the enemy as far as Genappe, 
where he foun4 the respectable Blucher, and both- 



BATTLE OP WATERLOO. 191 

embraced in the most cordial manner, on the royal 
road of Charleroi ; but finding himself in the same 
point as the Prussians, and that his army stood in 
need of rest after so dreadful a struggle, he left to 
Blucher the charge of following up the enemy, who 
swore that he would not leave them a moment of 
rest. This he is now doing, and yesterday, at noon, 
he had reached Charleroi, from whence at night, he 
intended to proceed on after them. 

This is, in substance, what has happened on this 
memorable day ; but the consequences of this event 
are too visible for me to detain myself in stating 
them. 

Bonaparte, now tottering on his usurped throne, 
without money and without troops to recruit his ar- 
mies, has received so mortal a blow, that, according 
to the report of the prisoners, no other resource is 
left him, " than to cut his own throat. 1 ' 

For this reason, they say, they never saw him ex- 
pose his person so much, and that he seemed to seek 
death, in order not to survive a defeat fraught with 
such fatal consequences to him. 

I told your Excellency, under date of the 16th, 
that his manoeuvre appeared to me extremely daring 
before such generate as Blucher and the Duke ; the 
event has fully justified my prediction. For this rea- 
son, I conceive, that his executing it has arisen from 
nothing else thaD desperation, at the appearance of 
the enormous troops ab^ut to attack him on all quar- 
ters of France, and in order to give one of bin em* 



192 SPANIH ACCOUNT. 

tomary blows before the Russians and Austrian* 
came up. 

His military reputation is lost for ever, and, on 
this occasion, there is no treason on the part of the 
allies, nor bridges, blown wp before their time, on 
which to throw the blame ; all the shame will fall 
upon himself. 

Numerical superiority, superiority of artillery, 
all was in his favour ; and his having commenced 
the attack, proves that he had sufficient means to 
execute it. 

In short, this talisman, which, like a charm, had 
enchanted French military men, has been dashed to 
pieces on this occasion. Bonaparte has for ever lost 
his reputation of being invincible ; and, hencefor- 
ward, this reputation will be preserved by an ho- 
nourable man, who, far -from employing this glori- 
ous title in disturbing and enslaving Europe, will 
convert it into an instrument of 'her felicity, and in 
procuring for her that peace she so much requires. 

The loss of the British is horrid, and of those -who 
were by the side of the Duke, he and myself alone, 
remained untouched in our persons and horses. 

The Duke of Brunswick was killed on the 16th, 
and the Prince of Orange and his cousin, the Prince 
of Nassau, aid-de-camp to the Duke. of Wellington, 
received two balls. The Prince of Orange distin- 
guished himself extremely v but, unfortunately, al- 
though his wound is not dangerous, it will deprive 
the army of his important services for some time, 
and possibly he may lose the use of his left arm. 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 193 

Lord Uxbridge, general of cavalry, received a 
wound at the close of the action, which made the 
amputation of his right leg necessary ; an irreparable 
loss, for it would be difficult to find another chief to 
lead on the cavalry, with the same courage and 
skill. 

The Duke was unable to refrain from shedding 
tears, on witnessing the death of so many brave and 
honourable men, and the loss of so many friends and 
faithful companions, and nothing but the importance 
of the triumph can compensate so considerable a 
loss. 

This morning he has proceeded on to Nivelles, 
and to-morrow he will advance to Mens, from whence 
he will immediately enter France. The opportunity 
cannot be better. 

I cannot close this dispatch without stating to } r our 
Excellency, for the information of his Majesty, that 
Capt. Don Nicholas de Minuissir, of Doyle's regi- 
ment, and of whom I before spoke to your Excellen- 
cy, as well as of his destination in the army, con- 
. ducted himself yesterday with the greatest valour and 
steadiness, having been wounded when the Nassau 
troops were driven from the garden, he rallied them 
and made them return to their post. During the 
action, he had a horse wounded under him, and by 
his former conduct, as well as by that of this day, 
he is worthy of receiving from his Majesty a proof of 
bis satisfaction. 

This Officer L? well known in the war-office, as well 

R 



194 FRENCH ACCOUNT. 

as to Gen. Don Josef de Zayas, who has duly ap- 
preciated his merits, 

God preserve your Excellency many years, Sec,, 
kc. 

(Signed) MIGUEL de ALAVA 

Brussels, 20th June, 1815. 

To his Excellency Don Pedro Cevallos, &c. &c. 

P. S. The number of prisoners cannot be stated, 
for they are bringing in great numbers every moment. 
There are many generals among the prisoners ; 
among whom are the Count de Lobau, aid-de-camp 
to Bonaparte, and Cambrone, who accompanied 
him to Elba. 



French Official Detail of the Battles with the Prus- 
sians and English, with Key's observations. 

BATTLE OF LIGNY-UNDER-FLEURUS. 

Paris, June 21. 

On the morning of^the 16th the army occupied the 
following positions : 

The left wing, commanded by the Marshal Duke 
of Elchingen, and consisting of the 1st and 2d corps 
of infantry, and the 2d of cavalry, occupied the po- 
sitions of Frasne. 

The right wing, commanded by Marshal Grouchy, 
and composed of the 3d and 4th corps of infantry, 
and the 3d corps of cavalry, occupied the heights ia 
rear of Fleurus. 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 195 

The Emperor's head- quarters were at Charleroi, 
where were the Imperial Guard and the 6th corps. 

The left wing had orders to march upon Quatre 
Bras, and the right upon Sombref. The Emperor 
advanced to FJeurus with his reserve. 

The columns of Marshal Grouchy being in march, 
perceived, after having passed Fleunis, the enemy's 
army, commanded by Field Marshal Blucher, occu- 
pying with its left the heights of the mill of Bussy, 
the village of Sombref, and extending its cavalry a 
great way forward on the road to Namur ; its right 
was at St. Amand, and occupied that large village 
in great force, having before it a ravine which form- 
ed its position. 

The Emperor reconnoitred the strength and the 
positions of the enemy, and resolved to attack im 
mediately. It became necessary to change front, 
the right in advance, and pivoting upon Fleurus. 

General Vandamme marched upon St. Amand, 
General Gerard upon Ligny, and Marshal Grcuchy 
upon Sombref. The 4th division of the 2d corp.^ 
-commanded by General Girard, marched in reserve 
behind the corps of General Vandamme. The guaTd 
was drawn up on the heights of Fleupus, as well as 
the cuirassiers of General Milhaud. 

At three in the afternoon, these dispositions were 
finished. The division of General Lefol, forming 
part of the corps of General Vandamme, was first 
engaged, and made itself master of St. Amand^ 
whence it drove out the enemy at the point of the 
bayonet Jt kept its ground during the whole of the 



196 FRENCH ACCOUNT. 

engagement, at the burial-ground and steeple of Bt. 
Amand ; but that village, which is very extensive, 
was the theatre of various combats during the even- 
ing; the whole corps of General Vandarame war* 
there engaged, and the enemy there fought in consi- 
derable force. 

General Girard, placed as a reserve to the corps 
of General Vandamme, turned the village by its 
right, and fought there with its accustomed valour. 
The> respective forces were supported on both sides 
by about 50 pieces of cannon each. 

On the right, General Girard came into action 
with the 4th corps, at the village of Ligny, which 
was taken and re -taken .several times. 

Marshal Grouchy, on the extreme right, and Ge- 
neral Pajol fought at the battle of Sombref. The 
enemy showed from 80 to 90,000 men, and a great 
■number of cannon. 

At seven o'clock we were masters of all the vil- 
lages situate on the bank of the ravine, which co- 
vered the enemy's position; but he still occupied, 
with ail his masses, the heights of the mill of Bussy. 

The Emperor returned with his guard to the vil- 
lage of Ligny ; General Girard directed General 
Techeux to debouch with what remained of the re* 
serve, almost all the troops having been engaged in 
that village, 

Eight battalions of the guard debouched with fix- 
ed bayonet?, and behind them four squadrons of the 
guards, the cuirassiers of General Delort, those of 
General Milhaud, and the grenadiers of the hor?e 



QATTLJ8 OF WATERLOO. 19? 

guards. The old guard attacked with the bayonet 
the enemy's columns, which were on the heights of 
Bussy, and in an instant covered the field of battle 
with dead. The squadron of the guard attacked and 
broke a square, and the cuirassiers repulsed the ene- 
my in all directions. At half past nine o'clock we 
had forty pieces of cannon^ several carriages, co- 
lours, and prisoners, and the enemy sought safety in 
a precipitate retreat. At ten o'clock the battle was 
finished, and we found ourselves masters of the Held 
of battle. 

General Lutzow, a partizan, was taken prisoner . 
The prisoners assure us, that Field Marshal Blucher 
was wounded- The flower of the Prussian army was 
destroyed in this battle. Its loss could not be less 
than 15,000 men. Ours was 3000 killed and wound- 
ed. 

On the left, Marshal Ney had marched on Quatre 
Bras with a division, which cut in pieces an English 
division which wa3 stationed there ; but being at- 
tacked by the Prince o( Orange with 25,000 men, 
partly English, partly Hanoverians in the pay of 
England, he retired upon his position at Frasne. 
There a multiplicity of combats took place ; the 
enemy obstinately endeavoured to force it, but in 
vain. The Duke of Elchinge^i waited for the 1st 
corps v which did not arrive till night ; he confined 
himself to maintaining his position. In a square at- 
tacked by the 8th regiment of cuirassiers, the co- 
lours of the 69th regiment of English infantry fell 
into our hands. The Duke of Brunswick was killed, 



19S Jb'RJCXCH ACCQVWt. 

The Prince of Orange has been wounded. We aru 
assured that the enemy had many personages and 
generals of note killed or wounded ; we estimated 
the loss of the English at from 4 to 5000 men ; ours 
on this side was very considerable, it amounts to 
4200 killed or wounded. The combat ended with 
the approach of night. Lord Wellington then eva- 
cuated Quatre Bras, and proceeded to Jenappe. 

In the morning of the 17th, the Emperor repaired 
to Quatre Bras, whence he marched to attack the 
English army : he drove it to the entrance of the 
forest of Soignes with the left wing and the reserve. 
The right wing advanced by Sombref, in pursuit of 
Field Marshal Bluoher, who was going towards 
Wavre, where he appeared to wish to take a po- 
sition; 

At ten o'clock in the evening, the English army 
occupied Mount St. Jean with its centre, and was in 
position before the forest of Soignes : it would have 
required three hours to attack it ; we were therefore 
obliged to postpone it till the next day. 

The head-quarters of the Emperor were establish- 
ed at the farm of Gaillon, near rianchenoit. The 
rain fell in torrents. Thus, on the 10th, the left 
wing, the right, and the reserve, were equally en- 
aged, at a distan ce of about two leagues. 

BATTLE O? MOUXT ST. JEAN. 

At nine in the morning, the rain having somewhat 
abated, the 1st corps put itself in motion, and placed 



BATTLE OP WATERLOO. 19$ 

itself with the left, on the road to Brussels, and op- 
posite the village of Mount St. Jean, which appear* 
ed'ihe centre of the enemy's position. The 2d corps 
leaned its right upon the road to Brussels, and its 
left upon a small wood, within cannon shot of the 
English army. The cuirassiers were in reserve be- 
hind, and the guards in reserve upon the heights. 
The 6th corps with the cavalry of General D'Au- 
mcni, under the order of Count Lobau, was declin- 
ed to proceed in rear of our right to oppose a Prus- 
sian corps, which appeared to have escaped Marshal 
Grouchy, and to intend to fall upon our right flank, 
an intention which had been made known to us by 
our reports, and by the letter of a Prussian general, 
enclosing an order of battle, and which was taken 
by our light troops. 

The troops were full of ardour. We e-timatcd 
the force of the English army at 80,000 men. We 

1 supposed that the Prussian corps, which might be in 
line towards the right, might be 15,000 men. The 
enemy's force, then, was upwards of 90,000 men, 
ours less numerous. 

At noon, all the preparations being terminated, 
Prince Jerome, commanding a divisiou of the second 
corps, and destined to form the extreme length of it, 
advanced upon the wood of which the enemy occu- 
pied a part. The cannonade began. The enemy 
supported, with CO pieces of cannon, the troops he 

• had sent to keep the wood. We made also on our 
fide dispositions of artillery. At one o'clock, Prince 
Jerome was master of all the wood, and the whole 



200 FRENCH ACCOUNT, 

English army fell back behind a curtain. Count 
d'Erlon then attacked the village of Mount St. Jean, 
and supported his attack with 80 pieces of cannon, 
which must have occasioned great loss to the English 
army. All the efforts were made towards the ridge • 
A brigade of the 1st division of Count d'Erlon took 
the village of Mount St. Jean ; a second brigade was 
charged by a corps of English cavalry, which occa- 
sio:*3d it much loss. At the same moment, a division 
of English cavalry charged the battery of Count 
d'Erlon by its fight, and disorganised several pieces ; 
but the cuirassiers of General Milhaud charged that 
division, three regiments of which were broken and 
cut up. 

It was three in the afternoon. The Emperor made 
the guard advance to place it in the plain upon the 
ground which the first corps had occupied at the 
outset of the battle ; this corps being already in ad- 
vance. The Prussian division, whose movement had 
been foreseen, then engaged. with the light troops of 
Count Lobau, spreading its fire upon our whole right 
Sank. It was expedient, before undertaking any 
thing elsewhere, to wait for the event of this attack. 
Hence, all the means in reserve were ready to sue - 
cour Count Lobau, and overwhelm the Prussian 
corps when it should be advanced. 

This done, the Emperor had the design of leading 
an attack upon the village of Mount St. Jean, from- 
which we expected decisive success ; but, by a. 
m ovement of impatience so frequent in our military 
annals, and, which has often been so fatal to us, the 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 201 

cavalry of reserve having perceived a retrograde 
movement made by the English to shelter themselves 
from our batteries, from which they suffered so 
much, crowned the heights of Mount St Jean, and 
charged the infantry. This movement, which, made 
in time, and supported by the reserves, must have 
decided the day, made in an isolated manner, and 
before affairs on the right were terminated,, became 
fatal. 

Having no means of countermanding it, the enemy- 
showing many masses of cavalry and infantry, and 
our two divisions of cuirassiers being engaged, all 
our cavalry ran at the same moment to support their 
comrades. There, for three hours, numerous charges 
were made, which enabled us to penetrate the 
squares, and to take six standards of the light in- 
fantry, an advantage out of proportion with the loss 
which our cavalry experienced by the grape-shot 
and musket firing. It was impossible to dispose of 
our reserves of infantry until we had repulsed the 
flank attack of the Prussian corps. This attack al- 
ways prolonged itself perpendicularly upon our right 
/lank. The Emperor sent thither General Duhesme 
with the young guard, and several batteries of re- 
serve. The enemy was kept in check, repulsed, and 
fell back— he had exhausted his forces, and we had 
nothing more to fear. It was this moment that was 
indicated for an attack upon the centre of the enemy. 
. As the cuirassiers suffered by the grape-shot, we sent 
four battalions of the middle guard to protect the 
cuirassiers, keep the position, and, if possible, disen- 



202 FRENCH ACCOUNT. 

gage and draw back into the plain a part of our ca- 
valry. 

Two other battalions were sent to keep them- 
selves en potence upon the extreme left of the divi- 
sion, which had manoeuvred upon our flanks, in order 
not to have any uneasiness on that side — the rest was 
disposed in reserve, part to occupy the pottnct in 
rear of Mount St. Jean, part upon the ridge in rear of 
the field of battle, which formed our position of re- 
treat. t 

In this state of affairs, the battle was gained ; we 
occupied all the positions, which the enemy occupied 
at the outset of the battle : our cavalry having been 
too soon and ill employed, we could no longer hope 
for decisive success ; but Marshal Grouchy, having 
learned the movement of the Pnissian corps, marched 
upon the rear of that corps, which insured us a signa 1 
success for the next day. After eight hours fire and 
' charges of infantry and cavalry, all the army saw with 
joy the battle gained, and the field of battle in our 
power. 

At half after eight o'clock, the four battalions of 
the middle guard, who had been sent to the ridge on 
the other side of Mount St. Jean, in order to support 
the cuirassiers, being greatly annoyed by the grape- 
shot, endeavoured to carry the batteries with the 
bayonet. At the end of the day, a charge directed 
against their flank by several English squadrons, put 
them in disorder. The fugitives recrossed the ra- 
vine. Several regiments, near at hand, seeing some 
troops belonging to the guard in confusion, believed 
it was the old guard, and inconsequence were thrown 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO . 203- 

into disorder. Cries of all is lost — the guard is driven 
back, were heard on every side. The soldiers pre- 
tend even that on many points ill-disposed persons 
cried out, sauve qui peuL However this may be, a 
complete panic at once spread itself throughout the 
whole field of battle, and they threw themselves in 
the greatest disorder on the line of communication ; 
soldiers, cannoneers, caissons, all pressed to this 
point; the old guard, which was in reserve, was in- 
fected, and was itself hurried along. 

In an instant r the whole army was nothing but a 
mass of confusion ; all the soldiers, of all arms, were 
mixed pele-mele f and it was utterly impossible to ral- 
ly a single corps. The enemy, who perceived this 
astonishing confusion, immediately attacked with 
their cavalry, and increased the disorder, and such 
was the confusion, owing to night comiag on, that it 
was impossible to rally the troops, and point out to 
them their error. Thus a battle terminated, a day of 
false manoeuvres rectified, the greatest success in- 
sured for the next day, — all was lost by a moment of 
panic terror. Even the squadrons of service, drawn 
up by the side of the Emperor, were overthrown and 
disorganized by these tumultuous waves, and there 
was nothing else to be done but to follow the torrent. 
The parks of reserve, the baggage which had not re- 
passed the Sambre ; in short, every thing that was on 
the field of battle, remained in the power of the ene- 
my. It was impossible to wait for the troops on our 
right j every one knows what the bravest army in 



204 FRENCH ACCOUNT. 

the world is when thus mixed and thrown into con- 
fusion, and when its organization no longer exists. 

The Emperor crossed the Sambre at Charieroi, at 
five o'clock in the morning of the 19th. Philippe- 
ville and Avesnes have been given as the points of re- 
union. Prince Jerome, General Morand, and other 
Generals, have there already rallied a part of the ar- 
my. "Marshal Grouchy, with the corps on the right, 
is moving on the Lower Sambre. 

The loss of the enemy must have been very great, 
if we may judge from the number of standards we 
have taken from them, and from the retrograde 
movements which he made ; — ours cannot be calcu- 
lated till after the troops shall have been collected. 
Before the disorder broke out, we had already expe- 
rienced a very considerable loss, particularly in our 
cavalry, so„fatally, though so bravely engaged. Not- 
withstanding these losses, this brave cavalry con- 
stantly kept the position it had taken from the Eng- 
lish, and only abandoned it when the tumult and 
disorder of the field of battle forced it. In the midst 
of the night, and the obstacles which incumbered 
their route, it could not preserve its own organiza- 
tion. 

The artillery has, as usual, covered itself with glo- 
ry. The carnages belonging to head-quarters re- 
mained in their ordinary position ; no retrograde 
movement being judged necessary. In the course of 
the night they fell into the enemy's hands. 

Such has beeatUe issue of the battle of Mount St. 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 205 

Jean, glorious for the French armies, and yet so 



fatal. 



The Prince o/Moskwa (Marshal Ney) to his Excel- 
lency the Duke of Otranto. 

M. le Due, — The most false and defamatory re- 
ports have been spreading for some days over the 
public mind, upon the conduct which I have pursued 
during this short and unfortunate campaign. The 
journals have reported these odious calumnies, and 
appear to lend them credit. After having fought 
Tor twenty-five years for my country, after having 
shed my blood for its glory and independence, an 
attempt is made to accuse me of treason ; an attempt 
is made to mark me out to the people, and the ar- 
my itself, as the author of the disaster it has just ex- 
perienced. 

Forced to break silence, while it is always painful 
to speak of one*s self, and above all, to answer ca- 
lumnies, I address myself to you, Sir, as the Presi- 
dent of the Provisional Government, for the purpose 
of laying before you a faithful statement of the events 
1 have witnessed. On the 1 1th of June, I received 
an order from the Minister of War to repair to the 
- Imperial presence. I had no command, and no in- 
formation upon the composition and strength of the 
army. Neither the Emperor nor his Minister had 
given me any previous hint, from which I could 
s 



2QQ FRENCH ACCOUNT. 

anticipate that I should be employed in the present 
eampaign. I was consequently taken by surprise, 
without horses, without accoutrements, and without 
money, and I was obliged to borrow the necessary 
expenses of my journey. Having arrived on the 
15th, at Laon, on the 13th at Avesnes, and on the 
14th at Beaumont, I purchased, in this last city, two 
horses from the Duke of Treviso, with which I re* 
paired, on the 15th, to Charleroi, accompanied by 
my first aid-de-camp, the only officer who attended 
me. I arrived at the moment when the enemy, at- 
tacked by our troops, was retreating upon Fleurus 
and Gosselies. \ 

The Emperor ordered me immediately to put myself 
at the head of the 1st and 2d corps of infantry, com- 
manded by Lieutenant-Generals d'Erlon and Reille, 
of the divisions of light cavalry of Lieutenant-Gene- 
ral Pine, of the division of light cavalry of the guard^ 
under the command of Lieutenant-Generals Lefeb- 
vre, Desnouettes, and Colbert, and two of the di- 
visions of cavalry of the Count Valmy, form ng, in* 
all, eight divisions of infantry, and four of cavalry- 
With these troops, a part of which only I had as yet 
under my immediate command, I pursued the enemy, 
and forced him to evacuate Gosselies, Frasnes, Mil- 
let, Heppegnies. There they took up a position for 
the night, with the exception of the 1st corps, which 
was still at Marchiennes, and which did not join me 
till the following day. 

On the 16th I received orders o attack the 
Jish in their position at CJuatre Jkas, We advanced 



BATTLE OP WATERLOO. 20? 

towards the enemy with an enthusiasm difficult to be 
described. Nothing resisted our impetuosity. The 
battle became general, and victory was no longer 
doubtful, when, at the moment I intended to order 
up the first corps of infantry, which had been left by 
me in reserve at Frasnes, I learned that the Empe- 
ror had disposed of it without advising me of the 
circumstance, as well as of the division of Girard of 
the second corps, on purpose to direct them upon St. 
Amand, and to strengthen his left wing, which was 
vigorously engaged with the Prussians. The shock 
which this intelligence gave me, confounded me. 
Having no longer under me more than three divi- 
sions, instead- of the eight upon which I calculated, I 
was obliged to renounce the hope of victory ; and, in 
spite of all my efforts, in spite of the intrepidity and 
devotion of my troops, my utmost efforts after that 
could only maintain me in my position till the close of 
the day. About nine o'clock, the first corps was 
sent me by the Emperor, to whom it had been of no 
service. Thus twenty -five or thirty thousand men 
were, I may say, paralyzed, and were idly paraded 
during the whole battle from the right to the left, and 
the left to the right, without firing a shot. 

It is impossible for me, Sir, not to arrest your at- 
tention for a moment upon these details, in order to 
bring before your view all the consequences of this 
false movement, and, in general, of the bad arrange- 
ments during the whole of the day. By what fatali- 
ty, for example, did the Emperor, instead of leading 
all his forces against Lord Wellington, who would 



SOS FRENCH ACCOUJVt. 

have been attacked unawares, and could not have 
resisted, consider this attack as secondary ? How 
did the Emperor, after the passage of the Sambre, 
conceive it possible to fight two battles on the same 
day ? It was to oppose forces double ours, and to do 
what military men who were witnesses of it can 
scarcely yet comprehend. Instead of this, had he 
left a corps of observation to watch the Prussians, 
and marched with his most powerful masses to sup- 
port me, the English army had undoubtedly been 
destroyed between Quatre Bras and Genappes ; and 
this position, which separated the two allied armies, 
being once in our power, would have opened for the 
Emperor an opportunity of advancing to the right of 
the Prussians, and of crushing them in their turn. 
The general opinion in France, and especially in the 
army, was, that the Emperor would have bent his 
whole efforts to annihilate first the English army ; 
and circumstances were favourable to the accom- 
plishment of such a project : but fate ordered other- 
wise. 

On the 17th, the army marched in the direction of 
Mount St. Jean. 

On the 1 8th, the battle began at one o'clock, and 
though the bulletin, which details it, makes no men- 
tion of me, it is not necessary for me to mention that 
I was engaged in it. Lieutenant-General Count 
Drouet has already spoken of that battle in the 
House of Peers. His narration is accurate, with the 
exception of some important facts which he has pass- 
ed over in silence, or of which he was ignorant, and 



BATTLE OF WATERLOO. 205 

which it is now my duty to declare. About seven 
o'clock in the evening, after the most frightful car- 
nage which I ever witnessed, General Labedoyere 
came to me with a message from the Emperor, that 
Marshal Grouchy had arrived on our right, and at- 
tacked the left of the English and Prussians united. 
This General Officer, in riding along the lines, spread 
this intelligence among the sgldiers, whose courage 
and devotion remained unshaken, and who gave new 
proofs of them at that moment, in spite of the fatigue 
which they had experienced. Immediately after, 
what was my astonishment, I should rather say in- 
dignation, when I learned that so far from Marshal 
Grouchy having arrived to support us, as the whole 
army had been assured, between forty and fifty 
thousand Prussians attacked our extreme right, and 
forced it to retire ! 

Whether the Emperor was deceived with regard 
to the time when the Marshal could support him, or 
whether the march of the Marshal was retarded by 
the efforts of the enemy, longer than was calculated 
upon, the fact is, that at the moment when his arri- 
val was announced to us, he was only at Wavre up- 
on the Dyle, which to us was the same as if he had 
been a hundred leagues from the field of battle. 

A short time afterwards, I saw four regiments of 
the middle guard, conducted by the Emperor, arriv- 
ing. With these troops, he wished to renew the at- 
s tack, and to penetrate the centre of the enemy. He 
ordered me to lead them on ; Generals, officers, and 
soldier. 1 ?, all displayed the greatest intrepidity ; but 
S 2 



210 FRENCH ACCOUNT. 

this body of troops was too weak to resist, for a lon^ 
time, the forces opposed to it by the enemy, and it 
was soon necessary to renounce the hope which this 
attack had, for a few moments, inspired. General 
Friant had been struck with a ball by my side, and 
I myself had my horse killed, and fell under it. The 
brave men who will return from this terrible battle 
will, I hope, do me the justice to say, that they saw 
me on foot with sword in hand during the whole of the 
evening, and that I only quitted the scene of carnage 
among the last, and at the moment when retreat could 
no longer be prevented. At the same time, the Prus- 
sians continued their offensive movements, and our 
right sensibly retired; the English advanced in their 
turn. There remained to us still four squares of the 
Old Guard to protect the retreat. These brave gre- 
nadiers, the choice of the army, forced successively 
to retire, yielded ground foot by foot, till over- 
whelmed by numbers, they were almost entirely an- 
nihilated. From that moment, a retrograde move- 
ment was declared, and the army formed nothing but 
a confused mass. There was not, however, a total 
rout, nor the cry of sauve qui pent, as has been ca- 
lumniously stated in the bulletin. As for myself, 
constantly in the rear-guard, which I followed on 
foot, having all my horses killed, worn out with 
fatigue, covered with contusions, and having no 
longer strength to march, I owe my life to a corporal 
who supported me on the road, and did not abandon 
me during the retreat. At eleven at night I found 
Lieutenant-General Lefebvre Desnoucttes ; and one 



BATTLE OE WATERLOG. 211 

of his bfRcers, Major Schmidt, had the generosity to 
give me the only horse that remained to him. In 
this manner I arrived at Marchienne-au-pont at four 
o'clock in the morning, alone, without any officers 
of my staff, ignorant of what had become of the 
Emperor, who, before the end of the battle, had en- 
tirely disappeared, ancl who, I was allowed to be- 
lieve, might be either killed or taken prisoner. Ge- 
neral Pamphele Lacroix, chief of the staff of the 
second corps, whom I found in this city, having told 
me that the Emperor was at Charleroi, I was led to 
suppose that his Majesty was going to put himself at 
the head of Marshal Grouchy's corps, to cover the 
gambre, and to facilitate to the troops the means of 
•Tallying towards A^esnes, and, with this persuasion, 
I went to Beaumont ; but parties of cavalry follow- 
ing on too near, and having already intercepted the 
roads of Maubeuge and Philippeville, I became sen- 
sible of the total impossibility of arresting a single 
soldier on that point to oppose the progress of the 
victorious enemy. I continued my march upon 
Avesnes, where I could obtain no intelligence of what 
bad become of the Emperor. 

In this state of natters, having no knowledge of 
his Majesty nor of tie Major- General, confusion in- 
creasing every moment, and, with the exception of 
some fragments of regiments of the guard and of the 
line, every one following his own inclination, I de- 
termined immediately to go to Paris by St. Quentin, 
to disclose, as quickly as possible, the true state of 



£!£ 5REWCIT ACCOUNT. 

affairs to the Minister of War, that he might semi 
to the army some fresh troops, and take the mea- 
sures which circumstances . rendered necessary. At 
mjr arrival at Bourget, three leagues from Paris, I 
learned that the Emperor had passed there at nine 
o'clock in the morning. 

^uch, M. le Due, is a history of the calamitous 
campaign. 

Now I ask those who have survived this fine and 
numerous army, how I can be accused of the disas- 
ters of which it has been the victim, and of which 
your military.annals furnish no example. I have, it 
is said, betrayed my country — 8 who, to serve it., 
have shown a zeal which I perhaps have carried to 
an extravagaut height : but this calumny is support- 
ed % no fact, by no circumstance. But how can 
these odious reports, which spreid with frightful ra- 
pidity, be arrested ? If, in the researches which 1 
could make on this subject, I did not fear almost as 
much to discover as to be ignorant of the truth, I 
would say, that all was a tendency to convince that 
I have been unworthily deceived, and that it is at- 
tempted to cover, with the pretence of treason, the 
faults and extravagancies of this campaign ; faults 
which have not been avowed in the bulletins that 
have appeared, and against which I in vain raised 
that voice of truth which I will yet cause to resound 
in the House of Peers. I expect, from the candour 
of your Excellency, and from your indulgence te 
me, that you will cause this letter to be inserted in 



BATTLE 01! WATERLOO 213 

the Journal, and give it the greatest possible publi- 
city. 

MARSHAL PRINCE OF MOSKWA, 
Pari*} Junt 26, 1815. 



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